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Footprints of Dare: A Minister Retooling Youth and Sports Ministry For National Growth

Published

6 years ago

August 26, 2020

BY RAMON BALOGUN

August 21 2019-August 21 2020 marked an eventful year in the annals/diary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports Devt. At the epicentre of these events is Mr Sunday Dare, the Hon. Minister of Youth and Sports Devt. Since his assumption of office a year ago ( and even now) the Minister has redeemed his promise of placing Youth and Sports on an even keel of development – a feat never achieved by his predecessors.

Policies and initiatives have been consistently pursued and implemented, with evidential impacts and resonating implications in both sectors (Youth and Sports).

In the youth segment, the visionary Minister crafted the DEEL initiative/ programme to engage and keep Nigerian youths busy through Digital skills in various ICT courses such as Coding, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Programming etc and the Work Experience Programme.

Policies without the will to drive implementation, as they say, is useless and pointless: This is not so, with the Youth and Sports Ministry under the watch of Mr Dare. Several engagements with corporate organizations that have bent for youth development programme led to working agreements/MoU between the Ministry and partnering entities such as IBM, AfDB, CBN, JUNIOR ACHIEVERS, WILLCO GROUP, NESTLE, MTN, GOOGLE.

These Partnerships plus it’s hanging fruits birthed 10,000 Nigerian Youths that were trained in 25 courses by the IBM; $100MN worth of support from the AfDB for DEEL implementation; inclusive of other bouquet programmes such as Coding for employment.

Worth mentioning in this eventful year is the new status of the Ministry as an Entrepreneurial Development Institution (EDI) courtesy CBNs approval; as a training centre across the six Geopolitical zones, meant to enhance the capacity of our youths to apply and secure the COVID-19 loan facility for Entrepreneurship under the auspices of the CBN.

Another spectacular shift programme that signpost deliberate investment in our youth is the recent Presidential approval for the establishment of Nigeria Youth Investment Fund( NYIF), an initiative of Sunday Dare. Typical of this administration’s commitment to harnessing the great potentials of our youths for national development, the objective of NYIF is to fund innovativeness, ideas, skills, and talents of the youths for business enterprise.

Structures or machinery for its implementation are already in motion-the Minister has inaugurated Focal Group and Inter-Ministerial Technical Committees-for this purpose. In a short while, the youths with fundable ideas would realize that their dreams and ideas would come to fruition under this administration. It is pertinent to state at this juncture, that a minimum of N25bn would be provided by this administration in the next 3years, totalling N75bn, to ringfence the NYIF. That is, it would strictly cater to the investment needs of persons between the ages of 18 and 35 years old.

Similar zeal for innovative ideas and the will to implement by the Youth and Sports Minister is also at play in the Sports segment. Within the dateline of an eventful one year of Sunday Dare in Office; policies and programmes that have brought hope of restoring our glories in Sports include the Adopt Initiative, Sports Industry Policy, reclassification of Sports as Business- no longer recreation, grassroots sports Devt. programme/ talent hunt programme, welfare packages for living and ex-internationals (players and athletes).

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Featured

Alake Inaugurates Nigeria-US Solid Minerals Committee, Dismisses $700bn Claim, Says No Assets Sold

Published

2 days ago

October 28, 2026

The Gleamer

Joel Ajayi

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, on Tuesday inaugurated the Nigeria-United States Committee on Strategic Cooperation in the Solid Minerals Sector in Abuja, dismissing reports that Nigeria sold $700 billion worth of solid minerals to the US.

The inauguration followed the strategic cooperation framework established between Nigeria and the United States during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Head PRESS and Public Relations Department Mrs. Kania Maliki Andeyaba stated that, Alake in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed with the US is a government-to-government platform to facilitate business-to-business engagements between American investors and Nigerian local operators, not a sale of assets.

Harping on the importance of the solid minerals sector to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic diversification agenda, he noted that the administration was committed to reducing dependence on a mono-product economy through the sustainable development of Nigeria’s vast mineral resources.

According to him, the Nigeria–US partnership as a strategic initiative to attract investment, promote technology transfer, strengthen local mineral processing and create employment opportunities.

“There is no sale of any Nigerian asset. There’s nothing exchanging hands,” Alake declared.

“We created a platform to facilitate mingling of US investment ventures with Nigeria’s local operators. It is in the public domain. We signed it in public and published it in four or five national newspapers.”

The Minister said reports claiming the US was coming to take over Nigeria’s minerals and security architecture were untrue at best and products of riotous imagination at worst.

Explaining the policy thrust, Alake said Africa has historically held the short end of the stick in global economic transactions, and Nigeria is determined to change that model.

“We have the resources, the critical elements the world needs to transit to clean energy. So we are creating a new paradigm — you bring your capital, expertise and technology, to match with our natural resources and create a win-win situation . The investor gains, Nigeria gains.’’he said.

Nigeria, he stressed, had operated a mono-cultural economy dependent on oil, while solid minerals were exploited informally — with ores taken “from pit to port” without value addition.

Alake said government has now made local processing mandatory, refusing to grant mineral titles to investors without a clear pathway to processing in Nigeria.

He said the policy led to the springing up of processing factories, including the largest lithium processing plant in West Africa commissioned recently in Nasarawa by the Vice President, and informed the formation of the African Minerals Strategy Group.

Alake noted that investor confidence has returned due to macro-economic reforms by President Bola Tinubu that guarantee security of tenure and repatriation of profits.

He charged the committee to discharge its assignment responsibly, saying its work is strategic to achieving the President’s $1 trillion economy target.

To this end, he told the Committee to ensure effective coordination, identify investment opportunities and translate the framework into measurable outcomes capable of positioning Nigeria as a competitive player in the global solid minerals industry.

In his welcome address, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Engr. Faruk Yusuf Yabo, said the inauguration translates growing bilateral engagements into a structured framework for practical cooperation and investment mobilization

Economic Officer at the US Embassy, Jonathan Baas, said President Donald Trump has prioritized three areas for US embassies — energy, artificial intelligence/super intelligence, and critical minerals.

Baas said Washington’s direction is to work with partners to secure critical supply chains while ensuring partners capture value.

“We just signed a contract today on looking into building AI data centres in Nigeria at the Nigerian Economic Summit. That’s the direction Washington wants us to go,” he said.

In his vote of thanks, CEO/Managing Director of Nigeria Solid Minerals Company, NSMC said that the committee

is expected to coordinate implementation, facilitate investment and monitor progress towards achieving the objectives of the Nigeria–US cooperation framework.

The inauguration reinforces the Federal Government’s commitment to repositioning the solid minerals sector as a key driver of economic diversification, industrial development and national prosperity under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

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