An institute of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Scientific Equipment Development Institute (SEDI) Minna, Niger State, has commissioned an entrepreneurship development centre to tackle youth unemployment and create wealth.
Speaking at the commissioning of the centre, christened Muhammadu Buhari Entrepreneurship Development Centre (MBEDC) yesterday in Minna, the NASENI executive vice chairman, Prof. Mohammed Haruna, said the centre can train youths in various new and emerging technologies and make Nigerians self-reliant.
Haruna explained that the new NASENI and the institutes under his watch had evolved a new approach toward addressing the need for a viable and or the laying of a sustainable foundation for the industrialisation of Nigeria.
The new NASENI strategy, he further said, is the dynamics of leveraging on the potentials inherent in Nigerians themselves at all facets of development while using the manpower, facilities and expertise in the NASENI system to unleash modern skills on the people through deliberate collaborations with various public and private institutions within and outside the country.
He disclosed that NASENI had embarked on the design, fabrication, and reengineering of all processes that would bring the desired technological development, industrialisation and innovations that are capable of addressing unemployment, poverty and ameliorating capital flight in the country.
“The Muhammadu Buhari Entrepreneurship Development Centre, SEDI Minna is one of such initiatives and it consists of a 250-capacity conference hall, four offices and seven skills’ acquisition and training rooms,” he stated.
Explaining the concept behind the empowerment centre, the managing director of SEDI Minna, Prof. Mohammed Ndaliman, said the centre establishment was made possible through the Federal Government’s intervention programme under its policy of Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
The ERGP, he said, was a medium-term plan of the government for 2017 to 2020 developed to restore Nigeria’s economic growth while leveraging the resilience and ingenuity of Nigerians.
“We at SEDI Minna and by extension NASENI are more suitable to bring into practical realities the government policies of ERGP and many more. This was the concept behind the Muhammadu Buhari Entrepreneurship Development Centre,” he added.
The managing director also hinted that the operations of the new entrepreneurship centre would not be limited to the provision of skills in the areas of shoe-making, leather production etc but the centre will provide the platform for a long-lasting technical capability to help address problems of unemployment and youth restiveness, including poverty-induced insecurity of lives and property in the country.
Ndaliman used the opportunity to call on governments at all levels and stakeholders to take advantage of the centre and SEDI Minna facilities and expertise to sponsor youths both to MBEDC and SEDI Minna for skills’ acquisition training in glass blowing, plastic making, woodworking, machining and metal fabrication.
A statement by the agency’s deputy director of press, Mr. Olusegun Ayeoyenikan, listed skills would be provided to the trainees in addition to all necessary entrepreneurship norms like discipline, planning and creativity geared towards profit-making for the trainees in their future endeavours.
