By Yemi Adeleye
#TrackNigeria: Dr Adetokunbo Pearse, the Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Lagos State, says he will train and engage street urchins otherwise known as “area boys” in the state if voted into power on March 2.
Pearse made the promise in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Monday.
According to him, my planned massive investment in education to combat problems of poverty, hunger and security in the state will cover training and retraining of the “area boys”.
“Area boys’’ in the state will be engaged with vocational training and we shall employ them.
“Many of these miscreants have a lot to offer the state. Some of them are embodiment of talents and gifts that can be harnessed to benefit themselves and the state.
“Many of these area boys and girls on the streets are by-products of unemployment. We will set up vocational training schools for them.
“When we arrest them, we will not go and put them in jail. We will re-train them. We will send them to schools, whichever one they want to go, vocation or technical.
“We will use this to reduce the number of area boys and girls on the streets,’’ Pearse, a university teacher said.
The candidate, who noted that many of the miscreants had one training or the other, said his government would create an enabling environment for them to practice their training if they so wanted.
According to him, many of these “area boys” are electricians, vulcanisers, carpenters and farmers, among other professions.
He said that if voted as the next governor of Lagos State, he would increase funding for education, especially vocation and technical education to reduce unemployment.
Pearse noted that the state had suffered enough security threats posed by the increasing number of miscreants across streets and communities. (NAN)
