By FRED ITUA
Recently, key entrepreneurs, predominantly drawn from the South East zone of the country, gathered at the Shehu Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja. Besides elements such as musical performances and the large turnout of folks from the eastern part of the country, youth development took the centre stage at the event, an award ceremony organised by Galaxy Transportation and Construction Services.
speakers at the event took their time to examine how insurgency has negatively affected the fortunes of people in the North-East and how youth entrepreneurship could bridge the gap created by the crisis.
Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, and Mr Muhammad Bello, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, sent representatives to the event, which lasted for over four hours. Their representatives offered goodwill messages from their principals and proffered ways out of the current hardship in the land.
The man of the moment, Mr. Babagana Abba Dalori, managing director of Galaxy Transportation and Construction Services, relived how he started a company that has helped in creating jobs for youths. For him, the journey is just beginning, as he said he still intends to take the venture further.
“Today is not for long addresses, but suffice to say that the idea of what we are witnessing as Galaxy Transportation and Construction Services Limited was mooted in 2010. I discovered in one of my several unscheduled visits to my uncle in Abuja, while serving as a Youth Corps member in neighbouring Kogi State, a lacuna that needed to be filled in the transportation system. I started making plans for own my company, while serving because I knew it was not going to be that easy to get a white-collar job, seeing a lot ot graduates all around searching for job to do, but to no avail.
“Hence, l began to think on what to do after my service, so I could be free from the precarious situation of unemployment.
“From the money I saved during my service, I was able lo buy one tricycle (Keke-NAPEP). Months later, I added another tricycle from the money generated from the first tricycle on hire-purchase arrangement. That was how the number of tricycles multiplied in geometric progression.
“And today, there are well about 300 to 350 tricycles running the streets of Abuja, belonging to the company and this fact could be well attested to by our dear investors and stakeholders,” he said.
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