The Federal Government has started the nationwide registration of Nigerians between the ages of 15 and 35 under the National Youth Data Bank (NYDB), a project designed to create a comprehensive database of the country’s young population and connect them to jobs, skills training and other opportunities.
Minister of Youth Development, Comrade Ayodele Olawande, announced this in Abuja yesterday at the launch of the project.
According to him, the exercise will cover youths in the formal and informal sectors, including those in agriculture, sports, the creative industry and technology.
Olawande explained that reliable data would help government understand the needs, skills and locations of young Nigerians, and improve the planning and delivery of youth development programmes.
He said the database would answer key questions about the youth population: who they are, where they are, what they can do and what opportunities they need.
The minister stressed that the programme is continuous and not an electoral exercise.
“We also want to get the formal and the informal youth to make sure that they are part of this. We want everybody,” he said.
“We even want to know the youth in agriculture. We want to know the youth in sport. We want to know all those in creative tech and all that, so that even when we say some people need jobs, we know, okay, these people need skills.”
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of POGMA Nigeria Limited, the project’s technical partner, Otunba Oluyinka Akerele, said registration points had been set up in educational institutions and would later be extended to local government areas and wards nationwide.
He said the exercise would reach students in secondary schools, polytechnics, universities and colleges of education, as well as youths in informal employment and rural communities.
“For the Nigerian youth registration, we have created cluster points in schools, polytechnics, universities, College of Education. These are targets for the formal sectors,” Akerele said.
He added that enumerators would be deployed to all 774 local government areas, including hard-to-reach communities.
Akerele urged young Nigerians to come out in large numbers to register, noting that the data would help government identify them and determine how best to link them with available opportunities.
“All we appeal to our youth to do is to embrace the programme, go out en masse and be registered. It is only when you are registered that we know who you are, where you are, and how you can benefit from the supposed government dividend of democracy,” he said.
On the age bracket, he said the 15–35 range was in line with the Nigerian Youth Policy.
“You are addressed as a youth in Nigeria once you are 15, and once you are 35, you still remain a youth,” he said.
Akerele said the database would be updated regularly to capture those who reach the eligible age, similar to the INEC voter registration process.
“For those that are not up to 15, that’s why you have an updating, just like you have with INEC. Once they are 15, our enumerators are there to capture them,” he said.
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