Youth, stakeholders in digital economy — NITDA D-G

Mr Inuwa Abdullahi, the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has said that Nigerian youth should consider themselves as stakeholders in Nigeria’s drive towards achieving a digital economy.

Abdullahi gave this advice on Wednesday in Abuja at the Closing Ceremony of Photography and Cinematography Skill Training organised by Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA).

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He enjoined the participants who were mostly young adults to see themselves as major players in ”Nigeria’s drive towards diversification of the economy from natural resources to digital based economy”.

Abdullahi explained that the youthful population of the nation was endowed which provided it with competitive advantage to be key player in global digital economy.

According to him, our greatest resource is not natural resource rather the human resource; that is where our strength lies.

”What we know and the knowledge we have, oil and gas is not our strength. With this kind of capacity building, the government is laying emphasis on skills.

“This training on Photography and cinematography can sprout you to be employers of labour.

“The world is going digital now and we now have digital media where you can leverage on Information Technology (IT) to market your contents to the world online,” he said.

The D-G said that to get a photographer to cover an event in Abuja today cost N150,000 to N400,000 and getting like four events in a month can earn them almost N450,000.

He also urged the participants to maximise the opportunity to become job creators.

The Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA) Managing Director, Mr Arabi Tukur, in his remarks thanked the NITDA boss for identifying with the event.

He urged the participants to heed to the advice of the D-G because “they are words full of wisdom”.

He said the government was ready to support good business ideas and had created platform for easy registration of businesses.

Earlier in his goodwill message, Mr Bayo Omoboriowo, President Muhammadu Buhari’s official photographer, expressed his gratitude to NITDA for what the Agency was doing for the younger generation.

“We want to build a creative industry and we are happy NITDA is supporting us because the Agency believes in what we set out to achieve,” he said.

NAN reports that NITDA donated 35 computers to the AEA to show its support for the skills and capacity building programmes it is involved in.