Managing Director of the National Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission, HYPPADEC, Abubakar Yelwa, has advocated a legislation that will criminalize non-wearing of life jackets by boat passengers.
He made the call at a stakeholders’ meeting on the agency’s Youth Transformation Programme (YTP) in Ilorin on Thursday.
Abubakar urged Houses of Assembly in its catchment areas to enact the laws to help mitigate the death rate from boat mishaps in riverine communities.
Speaking through the Director of Community and Rural Development, Dr Mahmud Muhammed, the HYPPADEC boss recalled how a riverine community lost 130 persons to a single boat mishap.
He disclosed that the agency had trained over 5,000 youths in its YTP scheme, noting that the 800 youths that benefited from the scheme in Kwara State would soon get starter packs to commence their own businesses and possibly employ others.
According to him, the starter packs that would be distributed to the beneficiaries who were trained in 15 vocations which include tailoring and fish farming cost over N255m.
Abubakar pleaded with the beneficiaries not to sell the starter packs, but put them to judicious use.
