Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The federal government has hinted that some major international smartphone manufacturers are considering establishing assembly plants in Nigeria.
The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Sylva, said this on Monday at the graduation ceremony of 600 youths trained on GSM phone repairs, maintenance, software and hardware specialisation in Kano state.
The training was a collaboration between the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and Mr Nasiru Ali-Ahmed, the House of Representatives member representing Nasarawa constituency of the state.
The Minister, who attended the event virtually, noted that Nigeria had the largest GSM market in the whole of the African continent and that it was time to become a major player in its own way.
“It is no longer news that GSM is not a luxury but an essential commodity, therefore, the training of the youths will boost the nation’s economy and local content development,” he said.
According to Mr Sylva, the training of the youths was part of an agreement reached to boost local content development and one of his ministry’s designed priorities to improve local content development, with youths taking the centre stage.
He said out of the 1,000 youths, 600 had fully graduated and the rest 400 would graduate before January 1, 2021, adding that already, 2,800 youths had been trained in Yobe, Bauchi and Cross River states as smartphone repairers and technicians.
In his remarks, Mr Ali-Ahmad said the training on GSM repairs and software maintenance was part of his zeal to ensure that idle youths were fully engaged economically.
“Every day, thousands of youths are graduating from the universities and other higher institutions, and the government was doing its possible best on them. But the government alone cannot provide employment to all the youths, which is why it is desirable to train them on self-reliance,” Mr Ali-Ahmad said.
He further said that the programme had been designed to train 5,000 more youths in 2021, and all those that have graduated would be provided with shops, tools and starter packs to start their businesses.
Also, in his speech, the Emir of Kano, Mr Aminu Ado Bayero, advised the trained youths against using their acquired skills in carrying out criminal activities.
Some of the youths who spoke during the event commended the federal legislator and the NCDMB for their gesture and assured of their readiness to make proper use of the skills they had acquired over the period.
