By Ozumi Abdul
Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) on Wednesday commemorated this year’s African Telecoms/ICT Day.
This year’s celebration of the 15th anniversary which has its theme as “Enhancing Financial Inclusion Through ICT was held at the Nigerian Institute of Architecture (NIA) in Waziri House, Kano.
The event was geared towards bringing together ICT policymakers, regulators, the private sector, and other key stakeholders to deliberate on the potential of financial inclusion on how to eradicate poverty, ensure health and well-being and reduce systemic inequalities.
Speaking at the occasion, the Project Coordinator of Community Network, a Project implemented by CITAD, Mallam Haruna Hadeja said the essence of organizing the gathering is to bring stakeholders together in the ICT industry to identify some gaps with the major aim of filling them, and to as well identify new areas in the ICT space.
He noted that the coming of ICT has reduced the level of unemployment irrespective of anyone’s academic qualification, adding that gone are the eras of analog when everything was redundant and retrogressive.
Hadeja said a particular agency he preferred not to mention its name had already established job opportunities, but however, questioned the sustainability of such opportunities. He added that those opportunities are only ephemerally transient that would not stand the test of time.
“A particular agency had already established job opportunities which I don’t want to mention the name, but the problem is, are those opportunities sustainable? They are opportunities that will only wipe away with time, so there is a gap filled with that type of opportunities”, he said.
Also speaking at the event was Mallam Salim Mustapha, the representative of Nurul Ameen Mustapha, who is the North West Zone Assistant Manager of NITDA.
Mustapha said NITDA bring one of the major stakeholders in the ICT space in Nigeria deemed it imperative to grace the event to give its goodwill.
He enjoined the participants to be business minded, by exploring the millions of opportunities ICT and telecommunication offer in generating incomes rather than wasting their time unnecessarily on social media platforms.
The facilitator at the event Dr. Surajo Musa said the focus of his presentation is to identify the ICT-based skills available in the ICT space, especially in the current era where the emphasis is on skills acquisition.
He enjoined the participants to seize the opportunity to embrace ICT skills for self-reliance and employment instead of over-relying on the government for white-collar jobs.
