One of the female stone breakers at work in Plateau

By Zainab Oyekan

A Stone breaker at the Mazaram Ray Field Quarry, Jos, Mr Daniel Ayinzat, on Sunday advised youths in Plateau to venture into stone crushing business.

This, Ayinzat said, would enable the Plateau youths to earn a living instead of engaging in social vices.

He gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos, Plateau State.

“The stone breaking venture would engage the youths positively and help them to meet some of their immediate financial needs”, he said.

According to him, natural formations of rocks and hills in the Plateau have given many youths self-employment.

“Opportunities are found all around the communities and all it takes to exploit it is hard work,” he said.

Stone breaking, done mostly by women, has been a long term venture in Plateau.

The exercise entails breaking big stones into smaller sizes used for construction works.

Ayinzat said that he had been in the stone breaking business for eight years and that it has been ”amazingly profitable” for him.

“I have been paying my school fees from this business.

”I am a student of one of the tertiary institutions, studying Quantity Survey,” he said.

Ayinzat said he had trained four boys in the business, one of whom was able to save money to buy a tricycle and had moved on.

He added that youths could engage in the business in the interim before they would get the kind of jobs they were looking for instead of engaging in vices.

However, because the stones are broken manually, Ayinzat appealed to the State government to support those doing the business with stone breaking machines.

This, he said, would further encourage more youths to venture into the trade.