In a bid to tackle the challenges of unemployment in Nigeria, the Federal government has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with leading Chinese technology firm, Huawei, to train 2000 young Nigerians on Information and Communication Technology, ICT.
Speaking after the signing, Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osibanjo, said “In the change agenda, how to grow the economy is important, and we want to create ICT hubs and support existing ones. We thank Huawei for this initiative of advancing technology in Nigeria, apart from the job creation itself. ICT is one of the quickest ways people can get decent jobs, so we think this is absolutely important”.
The Vice President said the relationship between Nigeria and China is a strategic one, urging Chinese investors and business leaders to consider Nigeria for manufacturing plants. He added that the Chinese investors “should encourage not just the selling, but also the manufacturing of products in Nigeria”.
According to the Chinese envoy, China is in partnership with the Buhari administration in the “change” agenda, listing the nation’s plans to be involved in such areas like agricultural modernization, industrialization, infrastructure, trade and investment, poverty alleviation, and peace, security, among others.
He pointed that Huawei hoped to become a strategic partner to the Nigerian government in the future ICT planning and development, and would continue to expand its contributions and training programmes in Nigeria.
The ICT training initiative strives to create a platform to nurture work-ready ICT experts by providing ICT industry-relevant education through the “Huawei’s Seeds for the Future programme”
Mr. Osinbajo was joined by the Minister for Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, and his Communications counterpart, Adebayo Shittu, at the ceremony attended by the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Gu Xiaojie.
Nigeria’s ministers for Labour and Communications, whose ministries would select the 2000 trainees, signed the MOU on behalf of the federal government, while Mr. Richard Cao, the Vice President of Huawei West Africa, signed for the Chinese Information Communication and Technology firm
Michael Shokunbi
Good step in the right direction, the underlying problems, immense. Remember Babangida had same project which collapsed with his regime, Obasanjo came with something close to it, the question remains what came of it
It is not enough to just train and let loose, there has to be post training evaluation with mechanism to measure periodic performances of trainees
Government could go a bit further to enhance take off mobility, by way of soft loan for immediate launch into productivity, any lapse or gap between acquisition of knowledge and actual field engagements could make beneficiaries become rusty despondent and susceptible to relapses, thereby jeopardizing the entire rehabilitation efforts, which might in turn renders all waste with resources plunged into it goes down the drain
It may not be enough to just train, provisions to facilitate enable environment should also ensued, this will make a lot of difference from past projects of same fashion, that went awry and died with facilitators who may have meant well
One way to achieve this may be, to place any beneficiary who was not a graduate and had not served in the NYSC should be placed on minimum national service with minimal remuneration lesser than the normal service pay, whilst the program was to prepare beneficiaries for self sufficiency, my argument is that, in other to keep the new brasses away from immediate inactivity, the minimal service engagement should serve as buffer or launch pad for trainees