By Magaj Isa

Jalingo — The wife of Taraba State governor,
Mrs Anna Ishaku, has said that her foundation,
the Hope Afresh Foundation, has gone into
partnership with the Central Bank of Nigeria
(CBN) to train about 10,000 unemployed youths.
She disclosed this in Jalingo, while flagging off
the training programme for the first batch of 220
participants
. Mrs Ishaku explained that the training on
various skills would create jobs and alleviate
poverty among the youths in the state. "The
level of poverty in Taraba is alarming so this is
part of my deliberate plans to create jobs for the
people and improve their living condition," she
said.

She also expressed satisfaction over the decision
of management of the Central Bank of Nigeria
particularly, the Enterprise Development Centre of
the bank for accepting to relocate from
Maiduguri zonal headquarters to Taraba for the
purpose of the training.
"I was told by the officials of CBN when they
visited me that out of 8,000 people trained in the
north-east so far, only 10 persons from Taraba
State participated." she stated.

According to the governor's wife low
participation of Taraba people in the programme
became a challenge to her to go into partnership
with the bank to ensure that the training was
done in Jalingo to enable more people in the
state benefit.
She however called on the participants to take
the training very seriously to enable them
become experts in their various trades. Earlier,
Alhaji Abubakar Umar, of the Enterprise
Development Centre of the CBN had commended
Mrs Ishaku for facilitating the hosting of the
training in Taraba State. Alhaji Umar said the
trainees would be taught how to write bankable
business plans that would help them access
loans for their businesses after the 16 weeks
training.

He said that the Central Bank would partner the
Taraba Micro Finance Bank to ensure that
participants had access to loans of between
N1million to N3 million for individual and N3
million to N10 million for groups to start their
businesses after the training.