Youth empowerment in Nigeria has become a minefield. Do it, you get criticized. Don’t do it, you get crucified.
Senator Ede Dafinone’s Delta Central Scaffold and Rigging Training Programme has just walked into that minefield, and the shrapnel is unfair.
It’s not enough to instigate disenchantment. Context matters. The beneficiaries crying for cash gratification where the priority is starter packs may not be villains.
Their frustration is understood. Prince Awhotu captures it bluntly: too many repeated skills training have left Urhobo youths with certificates that have not translated to improved livelihood.
When majority of our young people are forced into keke, hookups, or fraud to survive, the hunger for ‘urgent 2k’ at the slightest opportunity is understandable.
What the naysayers lose sight of is that these were not Dafinone-induced problems.
His 4 pillars of empowerment — skill, tools, market access, agency — are the gold standard, and no one should argue against them.
It’s a relief to have Wilson Okorugbo’s honest account of the recent skills training outcomes. It didn’t just give us the other half of the story. It offered the half that’s hard to drown out.
From day one, participants were told: intensive training + certification + starter packs. No ‘entitlement mentality’ cash sharing. That was the deal, and it aligns with The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB)/Federal Government guidelines for capacity building.
When some insisted on cash-for-packs, officials explained the rules. When tensions escalated and officials were held hostage for 2 hours, the organizers still chose safety over confrontation and even paid ₦20,000 logistics allowance — money never budgeted for, money never promised.
Distribution of starter packs is now happening across the district through LGA liaison officers in Okpe, Udu, Ethiope West, Ethiope East, Sapele, Ughelli South.
Ironically, the “no tools” claim is already being disproved by the process itself.
Senator Dafinone means well.
This is where the bashing becomes misplaced. Look at the design: rigging and scaffolding. Not generic “entrepreneurship seminar.” Not handouts.
Skills in immediate demand in Delta’s fabrication yards, offshore platforms, and construction sites. That’s deliberate. That’s thinking beyond the next election cycle.
Senator Dafinone chose to invest in trade skills + tools instead of cash that disappears in flashes. He chose NCDMB partnership to give certifications that carry weight in the oil & gas sector.
He chose to include youths “irrespective of political affiliation,” even known “Agege boys.” That’s not tokenism. That’s inclusion.
Awhotu’s sentiments may not be dismissed: empowerment must be complete. But Dafinone is even more right: you start with capacity.
You can’t give a welding machine to someone who can’t weld. You can’t hand market access to someone without certification.
Ignoring this caution has been the norm in the past, one that gives insensitive beneficiaries freedom to sell starter packs, get paid ahead of ceremonies to present them the tools meant to make them self-reliant.
The Senator started at pillar 1 and 2. Pillar 3 and 4 – market linkages and agency – can, and should, follow.
But to condemn the first step because it isn’t the whole staircase is to discourage every leader from taking any step at all.
What we’re witnessing is the danger of “entitlement mentality.” When every empowerment must equal cash, we teach our youths that skills are worthless without instant money.
We stunt the very self-reliance we claim to want. Senator Dafinone tried to break that cycle. For that, he’s being smeared? Who does that?
Bottom line: Senator Ede Dafinone does not deserve bashing. He designed a programme with clear intent: equip Delta Central youths with marketable skills and tools for dignity, not dependence.
The starter packs are coming. The ₦20k was goodwill, not a bribe for silence. The door for market linkage can still be opened.
If we want Urhobo youths pulled “from crumbs into enterprise,” then we must defend leaders who choose the harder, longer route of capacity-building over the easy applause of cash-sharing.
Criticize the gaps, yes. Demand completion, yes. But don’t demonize the intent.
Senator Dafinone meant well. Let’s let the starter packs reach every beneficiary, then judge the full harvest, not the seed.
Ufuoma Egbe, A Public Affairs Analyst writes from Eku Delta State
