Senator Onyewuchi Empowers 420 Owerri Zone Youths, Women with Skills Training, Start-Up Kits

Excitement filled the NASENI Skills Acquisition Centre at Owerri North Local Government headquarters on Saturday, as about 420 youths and women from across the nine local government areas making up Imo East (Owerri senatorial zone) received start-up kits and transportation stipends after completing a week-long skills acquisition training sponsored by Senator Ezenwa Onyewuchi.

The training covered four distinct skill areas: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Website Design, Phone Repairs and Maintenance, and Aquaculture/Fishery, with participants completing their coursework on Friday before receiving their empowerment packages the following day.

Speaking at the grand finale on behalf of Senator Onyewuchi, his Chief of Staff, Mr Chika Emerald Alozie, said the beneficiaries were being given their start-up kits entirely free of charge, describing the gesture as consistent with the senator's established pattern of empowerment work within his constituency. "This is what Senator Onyewuchi is known for. He doesn't just sponsor skills acquisition training for the constituents of the Owerri zone, but also provides the tools for those who participated in the skills acquisition to start up their businesses.

He is not nicknamed 'Mr Empowerment' for the fun of it," Alozie said, noting that the senator himself had built the NASENI Skills Acquisition Training Centre, which houses dedicated sections for fishery and aquaculture, solar installation and maintenance, graphics design and printing, website design and AI training, and phone repairs and maintenance.

Detailing what beneficiaries received based on their specific training track, Alozie explained that those who completed AI training were given brand-new laptops, while participants trained in phone repairs and maintenance received a full package of 12 different tools to help them start their own businesses. Those trained in fishery and aquaculture were given mobile ponds, fish feed, and fingerlings to establish operations within their respective communities.

Alozie disclosed that another batch of youths and women would soon commence training at the centre, stressing that the skills acquisition programme is not a one-off intervention but a continuous initiative under Senator Onyewuchi's broader policy of helping constituents become self-reliant. He added that the senator had separately provided electricity transformers to underserved communities within Owerri zone and had renovated schools and health centres across all nine local government areas making up the constituency. He urged the day's beneficiaries to use their start-up kits productively rather than selling them, and to pass on the skills they had acquired to others within their communities.

Several beneficiaries who spoke afterward expressed gratitude for the intervention. Peter Daniel Anyanwu, from Ahiazu Mbaise, who trained in fishery, said he now has a trade he can use to provide for his children, having received a complete pond, feed, and fingerlings to begin his own fish farming operation. Maduabuchi Samuel, from the Alulu community in Ngor Okpala, who trained in phone repairs and maintenance, said the training sharpened his ability to handle different types of phones, and that beneficiaries in his category also received stipends to help with renting a shop.

Odoemena Placid Onyedikachi, from Aboh Mbaise, who underwent the AI training, said participants were thoroughly trained across every aspect of the AI curriculum before each receiving a brand-new laptop. Reflecting on the broader impact of such interventions, Onyedikachi remarked that Nigeria's development challenges might look different if more elected lawmakers prioritised similar constituency-level empowerment work rather than, in his words, simply pocketing allocated funds.

The Owerri zone training adds to a growing list of skills-based empowerment interventions carried out by lawmakers and government agencies across Imo State and other parts of Nigeria in 2026, reflecting a broader pattern in which elected officials increasingly pair vocational training with the direct provision of start-up equipment, an approach intended to give beneficiaries not just knowledge but the practical means to immediately apply it toward earning a livelihood.