Vice President Kashim Shettima has reiterated that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration will not go back on its promise of creating an inclusive economy to enhance productivity growth in Nigeria.
According to a press statement issued by Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Communications (Office of the Vice President), Shettima made this declaration during the launch of the FGN-ALAT Skillnovation Programme at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday, September 29, 2023.
The FGN-ALAT Skillnovation Programme, a collaboration between the Federal Government and Wema Bank, aimed at supporting the information technology revolution to enhance productivity growth in Nigeria.
While giving his speech at the event, Shettima described the Skillnovation Programme as a “transformative initiative” that “ushers in a new era of digital empowerment for” Nigerians.
The Vice President noted that the initiative was one of the many to come, adding that it was a reaffirmation of President Tinubu’s commitment to supporting small businesses across Nigeria.
Speaking at the launch of the FGN-ALAT Skillnovation Programme, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Wema Bank, Moruf Oseni, said the initiative was aimed at addressing problems youths and micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria face in accessing funding, technology, infrastructure, and market.
Oseni said that $50m in funding had already been pledged by investors and that in partnership with state governments, physical hubs will be built to “serve as hotbeds for the kind of ideation and collaboration that will birth destructive innovation’.
The Skillnovation Programme will benefit two million Nigerian youths and one million MSMEs by providing them with global standard training for modern digital skills, software engineering, product design, data analytics and digital marketing.
According to the stakeholders of the FGN-ALAT Skillnovation Programme, there would be state-of-the-art training centres established across the country, beginning with Lagos and Borno states.
Thereafter training centres would be established in Katsina, Anambra, Oyo, and Kano states as part of the first phase of the implementation of the initiative.
In the second phase of the Skillnovation Programme state-of-the-art ICT centres would be built in Delta, Kaduna, Ogun, Bauchi, Kwara, and Ekiti States.
Speaking on how the initiative will achieve an inclusive economy, in line with President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, Shettima said:
Furthermore, the Vice President assured that “there would be no disadvantaged demographic in accessing this opportunity,” regardless of age, gender, or disability.
