Two thousand internally displaced persons, IDPs, in both Adamawa and Borno States have been trained in entrepreneurial skills in the last two years by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

The Managing Director of A. I. Development Services, an implementing agency for CBN entrepreneurship development in the North East, Abubakar Gusau, disclosed this on Thursday during a press briefing.

Abubakar said the IDPs were part of about 7,000 persons trained in the six Northeastern states from January 2013 to June 2016 as part of contract between his company and CBN to develop entrepreneurial skills of Nigerians living in the North East.

He said the programme had assisted in creating 4,136 jobs and helped graduates of the scheme to access fund as well as assist in building existing businesses.

Abubakar whose company has a five year contract (2013-2017) to trained individuals on entrepreneurial skills with the CBN, lamented that many persons in the country continue to wallow in poverty even with opportunities to make wealth present all around them.

He said many Nigerians have no business to be poor and definitely no need to flee to other countries in search of the Golden Fleece.

He said all that is needed for the citizens of the country to be wealthy is a change of mindset and attitude, explaining that his company was contracted by the CBN to build this.

Abubakar said: “We are not actually teaching people vocational skills, ours is a mindset re-orientation. To be a businessman you have to have the mindset of a businessman and that is what the CBN thought was missing,

“We have so far trained more than 1,000 from Borno IDPs camps and we have also trained 1, 000 in Adamawa IDPs camp,

“The training is designed towards  unlocking the potentials of the beneficiaries to find alternative business opportunities that would enabled them become self-reliant.