Background
In December 2017, news broke that illegal immigrants awaiting passage into Europe are being sold into slavery. Many of these immigrants were Africans and a significant number were from Nigeria.
The news of the Libya slavery re-echoes the prevailing issue of unemployment in the country and the African continent. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s unemployment rate rose from 14.2% to 18.8% in 2017. It is also said the Nigerian labor population increased from 83.9 million in the second quarter to 85.1 million in the third quarter of 2017, a difference of an additional 1.2 million in the workforce. While the youth make up about 70% of the Nigerian population, a significant proportion is unemployed.
Wealth is Here Campaign
In the wake of this scourge, the Nigerian Government aggressively began to repatriate its citizens from Libya, but there are still concerns that the slavery trap is not enough to dissuade these returnees or other vulnerable youth from the delusion that they can only excel in Europe.
The Wealth is Here campaign is a strategy by British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation to change this mindset, by exposing the Nigerian youth to the entrepreneurial opportunities in the country and also to highlight stories of entrepreneurs – Foreign and National – who have excelled in their fields. The message is that you can excel and prosper in Nigeria because wealth is here.
The Wealth is Here campaign is a platform to reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirit in the younger generation, through sustainable agriculture. It is also a campaign to revive hope and patriotism in Nigeria.
Wealth is Here Objectives
Create Awareness on the agri-preneurial opportunities in Nigeria.
Ignite the entreprenuerial spirit in the younger generation.
Expose young people to agri-preneurial packages available in public and private institutions.
Revive the spirit of patriotism.