The director-general, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Mallam Kashifu Abdullahi, has assured of the agency’s commitment to collaborate with the Manpower Development Institute on digital literacy training in Jigawa State.
Kashifu disclosed this while receiving the chairman of the institute’s governing board, Muna Tahir, and his team, who paid a courtesy visit to the NITDA headquarters in Abuja.
An excited Abdullahi called the move for collaboration between both organisations a “very timely one”, given that workforce development and capacity-building are priorities identified by President Muhammadu Buhari and prompted the setting up of a committee on how the nation can come out of recession.
“They came up with the economic recovery and growth plan with three objectives; to restore the economy, build a globally qualitative economy and invest in our people.
“This means our greatest resources are our manpower and natural resources; he added that this initiative has helped Jigawa State a lot. In today’s economy, we generate more money from services that are rendered through the human capital, as the nation currently creates more revenue from the IT sector than [it does from crude] oil,” he said.
Acknowledging the impact of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, he confirmed that the workforce is tailored towards driving a knowledge-based economy majorly on human capital development through the implementation of the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) and achieving 95 per cent digital literacy in the next eight years (2030).
Government cannot do it alone. The Federal Government needs collaborations with state governments, NGOs and private organisations to achieve its target, Abdullahi noted.
“Significantly, NITDA has conducted several activities and programmes from 2017 till date in Jigawa State like the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), training for women in ICT, the mobile phone repair for artisans etc. We are already having a partnership either directly or indirectly with the institute,” he recalled.
He further affirmed that the NITDA has been partnering with NGOs in training their staff at reduced rates and can explore the option in the partnership between both organisations.
While responding to the request for intervention, the DG stated that the agency will work on it and revert before the end of the year, urging the team to liaise with the director, IT infrastructure solutions, NITDA, Dr. Usman Abdullahi Gambo, who noted that discussions on possible areas of benefit for both organisations will be optimised.
Earlier, the chairman, governing board, Manpower Development Institute, Muna Tahir acknowledged that NITDA had held training sessions for government staff across 19 states from 2017, in addition to other activities over the years. He applauded this impact but insisted on a collaboration with NITDA in the provision of ICT gadgets and capacity-building for the institute.
He lamented that MDI could not obtain the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) license to function as a CBT centre for lack of adequate types of equipment, hence the need for NITDA’s support.
