First Bank moves to tackle unemployment, empowers youth

First Bank of Nigeria Ltd., on Thursday reiterated its commitment to tackling the nation’s rising unemployment rate with youth empowerment initiatives aimed at wealth creation.

Mr Gbenga Shobo, the bank’s Deputy Managing Director, spoke with our correspondent in Lagos on the sidelines of the youth empowerment initiative with the theme “Goals. Grit. Grind.”

Shobo told our correspondent that the bank would remain committed on ways to tackle the nation’s unemployment rate by catching them young.

He said that Nigerian youth must have goals to succeed in life, and must be committed to them.

“We like the youths to start understanding wealth and how to create wealth.

“You also understand that in Nigeria now, it’s a bit of unemployment and we want to start early with the youths to start teaching them how to create wealth, especially outside the formal employment,” Shobo said.

He said that the youth empowerment initiative which started in 2017 was introduced to strengthen financial inclusion and as well make the youths independent, instead of relying on their parents for everything.

“We want to start young and we have two sets of people here today — 9 to 13 years and older ones — we don’t think it’s too young at all to reach out to the youths segment.

“Some of them who were here last year have used what they learnt to be financially independent. A lot of them have started doing things on their own, while waiting for formal employment.

“We will continue to do this series to strengthen economic growth and development,” Shobo said.

He said that the bank, through the initiative, had instituted various investment clubs for mentoring of youths to enhance financial freedom.

“Some of them have investment clubs; we are involved in some of these investment clubs, so, within those clubs, we help to mentor them,”the deputy managing director said.

He said the bank had introduced other financial inclusion strategies that make it easier for people to open an account without stress.

Dr Aderemi Banjoko, Director & Founder, dbkMarkets, a global online trading company, who was the guest speaker, tasked the youths on wealth creation, money management and investment.

Speaking on the topic “Financial literacy for youths”, Banjoko said that knowledge was key to financial literacy and management.

He said that financial literacy entails ability to make informed judgements and take effective decisions regarding the use and management of money.

Banjoko stressed the need for diversification of investment to minimise risk, noting that investing in different asset classes remained the main thing.

He urged the participants to invest in stocks and shares, money market mutual fund such as commercial papers, treasury bills, among others.

Banjoko enjoined them to invest through financial experts in order not to make mistakes, advising that investing through mutual funds would be safer for them.