Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), has said that twenty thousand graduates will commence paid fellowship in January 2022 through the United Nations Development Programme and Federal Government partnership.

He stated this on Friday at the 2021 Presidential Policy Dialogue of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

According to him, the partnership is under the Nigeria Jubilee Fellows Programme, which is aimed at opening up opportunities to address unemployment by providing 20,000 young Nigerian graduates annually with year-long job placement opportunities in both the public and private sectors across the country.

In a statement by his spokesman, Laolu Akande, on Saturday, the VP also stated the Federal Government’s interventions in reducing the country’s youth unemployment gap through job initiatives.

“These include the N-Power scheme (where up to 1.5 million young Nigerians were recruited over two cohorts), and the Jubilee Fellows Programme – in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, the European Union, and other partners – a one-year work placement scheme for 20,000 young Nigerians set to kick-off in January 2022,” the statement read in part.

It was titled, ‘New National Development Plan Depends On Strong Public-Private Partnership – Osinbajo’.

The VP was quoted as saying, “While this was a scratch on the surface as well over two million young people enter into the workforce every year, there is no doubt that the Nigeria private sector has to thrive in order to create the number and kinds of jobs that we need but it is also important for the Nigerian youth to acquire the skills and knowledge of the workplace.”

Osinbajo also disclosed that the collaboration of both government and the private sector “must promote productivity and value addition and move away from the despair of managing limited resources to producing and creating more in a competitive and sustainable manner.”

He said through the new National Development Plan, the Federal Government is placing particular focus on job creation, value addition, and promoting a business-friendly environment.

Explaining how the collaboration would be implemented, the VP stated that the Plan “envisages an investment commitment of N348trillion over the plan period of which it is expected that Government at all levels will come up with about N49.7trillion or about 14%, while the private sector is expected to invest N298 trillion or about 86%.”