Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State has tasked youths to be problem solvers in their environment rather than joining the multitude to complain about the situation of the country.

The governor said regardless of the field they find themselves whether in the digital space, the music industry, the fashion industry, agricultural industry, branding, among others, youths should “continue to work at it, no matter how small, just continue to work at it because luck is preparation meeting opportunity. Just be prepared.”

Okpebholo spoke in Benin on Wednesday at the day 2 of Edo Youth Impact Forum (EYIF) 2.0 with the theme: Ideas, Capital & Impact.

The governor, represented by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Umar Musa Ikhilor, expressed his administration’s commitment on the “welfare and development of our youth and harnessing the immense potentials and talents and creativity of the Edo youths.”

The governor added: “Ask yourself, what you can do to fix a problem in your community, within your environment, instead of just sitting down to complain and grumbling, raining abuses, you can choose to do something.
Take action. Part of taking action might just be participating, participate, be involved. Let us not just be on social media abusing, complaining.

“Whether in the digital space, the music industry, the fashion industry, even the agricultural industry and all that, continue to do what you are doing and do it well, someday the opportunities will come and it will meet your preparation.”

Okpebholo, while expressing satisfaction at what Edo Youth Impact Forum is doing, stated that the forum is “projecting the very agenda of the government when it comes to human capacity building. We are ensuring that the forum practicalize our philosophy of practical governance in empowering youth, training them, providing master classes and empowering them after those master classes.”

Earlier, the Team Lead and Special Adviser on Finance, Investments and Revenue Generation, Kizito Okpebholo, stated that the programme was the idea of the governor to do something for Edo youths.

He added: “Last year, he tasked me to do something for our youth. He said, go and do something for our youth. Go and plan a program for our youth. Something that is different from every other kind of youth empowerment program. I was able to build a team around me and we delivered the first edition where we gave out N10,000,000 to 5 startup ideas of N2,000,000 each. We gave N10,000,000 to 5 business ideas.

“This year, we are taking it a step further. We are giving out N40,000,000 in grants to 11 business groups. We have them in different categories.”