Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State has said that it is not proper to be educated and still be in bondage.
He said the purpose of acquiring knowledge is to liberate oneself and by extension the society he lives in.
Masari while disabusing the minds of youths in the State from focusing on paid employment, admonished them to strive towards being more innovative and enterprising by putting their brains to work.
Similarly, he tasked youths in the State to stop casting aspersion on family and community businesses by which they were raised and educated as such businesses are what made the so called developed countries of the world today, great.
Governor Masari made the statement while declaring open, a summit organised to discuss the future of the State titles: The Save Katsina Group Summit.
“The benefits of the education you have is to free you. An education that does not free the individual from bondage is not an education.
“We don’t go to school because we must be given a paid employment. An educated sugarcane seller will do better than an uneducated sugarcane seller.
“Young men and women, those trades that your fathers and mothers did to educate you, improve on them. Don’t feel that you are above them now. That is part of the problem that is creating unemployment
“Your father is a blacksmith. You go through education through his labour, then you look down on that trade instead of thinking: how do I make it better? How do I improve on this trade?
“History abounds that this small and medium enterprises skills are what made nations great; especially Germany.
Don’t abandon family businesses, don’t abandon community businesses and start looking for white collar jobs. How many white collar jobs do we have?
“The entire workforce in Katsina State, local government, state government and everywhere is not more than a 100,000 and we are consuming in salaries and allowances alone; consuming 5 billion out of those 6 billion at most the state will get.
“How can we progress? Where is the job for everybody? There is opportunity for everybody but there are no jobs for everybody,” Governor Masari said.
Hamza Umar Saulawa, the State Coordinator of the Coalition for Save Katsinsa Group, said the motive of the group which comprises non-governmental organisations in the state, is to assemble all the young minds in the State to forge a great future for the people of the state considering the recent challenges threatening the good legacies the State was known for.
On their expectations at the end of the summit, he said their earnest prayer is to see that the government faithfully implements the recommendations generated from the summit as it will go a long way in reducing to the barest minimum the challenges facing not just the youths but the State as a whole.
