"Youths and Women, and particularly the youths are beacon of every nation's future and unless special care, attention and goodwill is given to them, we may end up having a society of urban guerillas with a restive array of young people who are unemployed and angry and have no food to eat and no school to go to. The result will be tragedy, so, as a government, our major priority is to first of all embark on focused youth and women empowerment programmes to address the youth restiveness and women unemployment which we inherited from the previous administration," Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State said while delivering his inaugural address in 2007.

One of the major challenges of development in the country generally is what to do with the large army of the unemployed and sometimes restive youth. For Bauchi State in particular, the pressing challenge the present administration is faced on assumption of office in May 2007 was how to manage the large number of unemployed youths and women who actively participated in the political revolution in the state. Before the elections, there was serious youth restiveness that manifested itself in youth gangsterism, commonly referred to as "Sara-Suka" (deadly and dreaded political thugs), which engaged in the use of lethal weapons in minor social and political disagreements.

Consequently, Yuguda, appreciating the enormity of these problems associated with this pandemic unveiled a "marshal plan" to address the youth restiveness and women unemployment by establishing the state Agency for Youth and Women Rehabilitation and Development (BAYWARD).

The agency is saddled with the responsibility of mopping up the restive youths off the streets by engaging them productively in various empowerment programmes such as educational placement into tertiary institutions, skills acquisition to make them employable and employers of labour as well as direct economic empowerment.

One prominent feature of the 4.6 million people of Bauchi State is the high level of illiteracy and poverty occasioned by the lack of skills among the youths and women. It is also worthy to note that societal degeneration, parental poverty and the loss of values has resulted on waywardness of youth to the extent that parents and guardians lost control of their respective wards.

The Director-General of BAYWARD, Professor Musa Maisamari while presenting the agency's score-card during an interview with THISDAY, said the agency which is directly under the office of the state governor rolled up its intervention programmes in five core areas - social, education, economic, public works and rural infrastructure to empower the youths and women in the state through massive job creation during the past two years of the Yuguda administration.

About 30,000 youths and women have so far received training on various crafts during the period under review, but one of the agency's spectacular achievements is its educational intervention programme, which has positively touched on the lives of over 2000 brilliant indigent students who were offered admission into tertiary institutions in 2007/2008 session for either remedial, diploma or degree studies.

Another 2000 students were enrolled into extra-mural classes through private - public partnership with Yankari Academy to reseat their NECO and WAEC examinations. Interestingly, the students NECO results have shown spectacular performance for entry into universities, such that additional extra-mural classes were opened at Azare with 500 students. Similarly, the present administration has purchased and distributed 2000 pre-paid Jembi paid phones as a way of making the youth self-reliant and each beneficiary also got a prepaid credit of N8000 and N2000 worth recharge cards for sale, a table, two chairs and an umbrella.

Government hopes that each beneficiary will make a profit of not less than N15, 000 a month. Also, as part of the micro business project aimed at empowering those who wish to start small business, the agency in collaboration with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi has trained 200 unemployed youths, five from each of the 20 local government areas of the state in fish production and feed formation. Apart from the training, the agency has constructed and stock 20 fish ponds to be managed by a group of five youths in each local government areas.

According to Maisamari, "apart from securing placement of these indigent youths into tertiary institutions, the administration of Yuguda pays in full all their tuition fees, subsistence allowance as well as cost of course materials and to date, we have about 80 BAYWARD sponsored undergraduates in the Federal University of Technology Yola, University of Maiduguri, University of Jos, Bayero University Kano, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Bauchi, and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria pursuing courses in medicine. Such courses include architecture, information technology, radiography and geology amongst others, while for the 2009 alone, BAYWARD is sponsoring over 1500 students for remedial courses in sciences in eight universities and another 749 students for HND, NCE, OND and IJMB in three polytechnics and a colleges of education." He stressed

"Through collaboration with Cosmopolitan Cleaners Limited, 1900 youths and women are engaged in cleaning major streets in the state capital, headquarters of the 20 local government councils and the 21 General Hospital. This partnership has greatly improved the sanitary conditions of our cities and hospitals," the agency's boss said.

THISDAY investigations also revealed that the Yuguda Administration in collaboration with a private security firm, Spider Web Security Nigeria Limited has trained and deployed over 2,000 youths to secure government establishments and to maintain law and order during public functions. The state government hopes that this crop of youths would readily be available for recruitment into the military and para-military forces in the country when the need arises.

And to further provide jobs, rid the environment of the menace of plastic bags and bottles, and the attendant threat to the health of the citizens, the state government has approved the purchase and installation of three recycling plants to be located in Bauchi, Azare and Ningi towns. This project is expected to generate over 5000 jobs as well as address the severe degradation of the environment brought by the uncontrolled usage of plastic materials in the state. They are expected to be fully operational before the end of this year.

The objective of the skills acquisition programme, according to Maisamari, "is to get as many youths and women as possible trained and therefore made employable and employed by learning the requisite skills formally and informally. Between November 2007 and April 2009, BAYWARD was able to train 4,930 youths in 37 different skills under the Master Trainers and the corporate Trainers Schemes."

The BAYWARD boss also explained that the Yuguda Administration has sourced funds to the tune of N475, 578,799 to be disbursed as interest free loan in cash and kind to the graduands of those trades mentioned earlier on, saying that the government is not only the guarantor of the facility, but has also agreed to pay the interest accruable there on.

Another area of interest in the area of skill acquisition programme of the government is the opportunity given to women in purdah. Because of the cultural and religious restriction, very few women access some of the agency's empowerment programmes. To this end, the agency is liaising with Islamiyya and other religious institutions for the specific training of women especially in ICT and other productive ventures.

The government has also taken steps to deal with the high level of drug abuse and other anti-social behaviours. As a result, BAYWARD is set to establish three rehabilitation centres not only to detoxify the victims and afford them access to skill acquisition and rehabilitation, but also to resettle them. These centres are to be established in Duguri, Warji and Gololo.