NACCIMA Grooms Over 50,000 Youths Entrepreneurs

L-R: Temitope Ande, PRO, NACCIMA Export Promotion Group,  DG of NACCIMA, Ambassador Ayoola Olukanni, Outgoing President, Alaba Lawson, Member Export Promotion Group of NACCIMA, Oladapo Ande  and others after the commissioning of Ide John C. Udeagbala Business Centre at NACCIMA’s head office in Lagos.

By Lucy Ekpenyong

National Association of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) outgoing President, Alaba Lawson, has described her time in NACCIMA as fulfilling as the association glows during her tenure.

While speaking with Commerce and Industry Correspondents during the commissioning of Ide John C Udeagbala Business Center at NACCIMA Head office in Lagos, said the most memorable achievement of her two years tenure was the inauguration of NACCIMA Youth Entrepreneurs.

She noted that the unemployment rate is still high and there are few white collar jobs hence the move to catch them young and teach them how to become an entrepreneur using their talents.

“The white collar jobs are no longer there. So I inaugurated them and put some of them in place of position to mentor them, to make sure they use their talents. We linked with some Agencies like FIIRO, Nigeria Export Promotion Council, amongst others to build their capacities, training, workshops which brought out their talents”she said.

Lawson stated that the youth Entrepreneur centre are currently in 17 states and have trained over 50 thousand youth Entrepreneurs, while more are still joining.

She added that another great achievement of her time in office was ensuring that NACCIMA Export Promotion Group was result-oriented.

“Another thing is that NACCIMA Export Promotion Group is doing extremely well. To improve our Gross Domestic Project (GDP), you need to have very good strong export group that will obey the rules and regulations of each country, so that we can compete favourably all over the world,” she said.

Lawson however called on standards agencies of the government like National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), and Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), among others to ensure that the quality of Nigerian products are of international standard and can compete favourably with others in the global market.

She said the move will ensure Nigerian goods are exportable.