The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Foundation has trained the Batch C members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in basic financial literacy skills.

The training was done in partnership with Kudimata Nigeria Limited, a financial education outfit.

The target is to train over 200,000 graduates through the scheme.

This was disclosed in a statement by the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of NNPC Ltd, Femi Soneye.

The training aligns with the objectives of Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) scheme of NYSC.

Its maiden edition featurred Batch B stream in the past months. So far over 118,000 youth corps members have been trained in financial literacy, while about 70,000 are being trained across the 37 NYSC orientation camps in the country.

Speaking during the training, the Managing Director, NNPC Foundation, Emmanuella Arukwe described financial literacy as a key askill  for success in the real world.

“We are partnering with both NYSC and Kudimata to bring financial literacy to the corps members, as this will help them make a better-informed decision. We are very passionate about young people and NYSC is a veritable ground as it cuts across 20 to 30 years old youth, thus, making it the right demography,” she stated.

“This programme cuts across the 36 states of the country including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). This is the first step towards a series of programmes that will culminate in instilling entrepreneurship in the Corps members.

After this training, those who pass the examination by 70 percent will move to the next stage. The next stage will keep them better informed on how to run businesses to ensure success in their businesses. Thereafter, we will do a pitching where those who are properly trained will be selected and be given start-up kits to go ahead and be on their own.”

Unemployment is one of the biggest challenges facing young people in Nigeria. Speaking on this, Arukwe said: “We are aware of unemployment as a challenge plaguing young graduates and we recognize the need to empower the youths through capacity building of this magnitude for them to empower the whole nation.

This training will help reduce unemployment and underemployment in Nigeria, thereby making the corps members employers of labour.”

On her part,  the FCT Coordinator of NYSC, Shokpeka Winifred thanked  NNPC Foundation and Kudimata Nigeria Ltd. for their  support, adding that the training offers platform where young people can learn how to become  good managers of resources.

“Going forward, I’m confident that they will put what they have learnt to use by utilizing their funds well as they are now aware of how to earn, maintain and multiply their finances. We are striving to see them becoming business owners, tomorrow through further mentorship,” Shokpeka said.

One of the corps members at the NYSC orientation camp in Abuja, Prudence Enema said: “I’m thrilled that the NNPC Foundation took their time to train us on financial literacy, we are aware that financial literacy is very important, and we have learnt a lot on how to multiply our money in order not to suffer in the future.”

Another corps member, Okeke Ugochukwu revealed that the training was worthwhile as the importance of saving and categorization of finances were taught effectively.