Young Nigerian entrepreneurs engage in shoe making to curb unemployment

Unemployed and facing lack of opportunities, a group of young people are now actively involved in shoe making in Nigeria’s northern city Yola.

The young entrepreneurs have been inspired by a government’s decision to promote and encourage the production and consumption of locally made products, as a way of improving the economy.

“The economy will not build itself, it’s actually we that will build up the economy even if the insurgents has affected and destroyed the economy, we will still be the one to build it and how are we going to build it? By getting one or two job done. So imagine now I open my own fashion brand and I employed five people, I have affected the economy positively,” Nigerian shoe maker, Celebration Eytayo said.

Despite a high youth unemployment caused by economic, political woes and an active insurgency in northern Nigeria, young entrepreneurs are finding ways to make use of limited resources to earn a living.

According to economic analyst Martins Dickson, the difficult economic situation has pushed people to work even harder

“Now, having gone through these difficult times of insurgency, people have seen the negativity that is involved with it and so much has been destroyed and not available anymore,” public affairs analyst, Martins Dickson said.

A pair of shoe sells between 4 U.S. dollars and 8 U.S. dollars. The business has steadily gained a following amongst local residents, who say they prefer to buy locally made shoes to imported ones.