Kaduna — Three hundred youths in communities surrounding the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) have graduated from the youth empowerment and skill acquisition programme of the company, the Managing Director (MD), Engineer Bolanle Ayodele has disclosed.

Ayodele said in a telephone interview with our correspondent yesterday in Kaduna that the youth empowerment and skill acquisition programme is meant to positively impact the host communities.

He said: "The whole idea of starting the programme in 2008 was to try and assist in addressing the problem of youth unemployment which could result to restiveness. To that extent, I believe the programme is achieving the objective because we turned out about 300 graduates last year.

"The fourth batch of 105 youths will be graduating on the 7th of February, making a total of 405 who have gone through that programme. When the youths have been taught certain skills and they are able to make use of those skills to get some income, it helps to remove or at least minimize problem of youth restiveness.