Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State has said that the hypographic survey/dredging of sea route from Oguta Lake to the Atlantic Ocean which was flagged off on Thursday by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, will generate 500,000 jobs by the time it is completed.

Uzodimma spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday.

The governor though said detailed data for all the benefits of the project cannot be determined at this preliminary stage, he expressed confident the project will create enough jobs to tackle youth unemployment.

“We are at the conception stage of the project and the latest now which is the flagging-off of the project is what we call preliminary engineering. It is after the preliminary engineering that we will now do the detailed engineering by which time the necessary data required to have a high integrity detailed engineering would have been gotten.

“However, from the point of concept, it is assumed that on completion this project is capable of generating 500,000 jobs,” Uzodimma said.

He added: “The agitation you see in the South-East, the confusion you see in Nigeria, the radicality you see among our youths can be blamed on idleness, unemployment and I am sure that the Federal Government of Nigeria under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari is interested in creating employment for our youth.”