NITDA DG SAYS ICT SECTOR HAS CREATED 12M JOBS IN TWO YEARS

                                             

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Peter Jack, has disclosed that that the nation’s Information and Communication Technology, ICT, sector has boosted the federal government’s effort in job creation with the creation of about 12 million jobs from 2012 to date.  

This feat according to him is a significant improvement on the 2.5 million jobs also generated by the sector from 2002 to 2012.

Jack disclosed this in Abuja, saying that the sector has made a direct contribution of 10.56 per cent to GDP in the same period.

He stated that NITDA with the support of World Bank and UK Department for International Development, DFID also plan to create 460,000 more jobs across eight critical sectors in the Nigerian economy, having identified the sector as topmost priority.

“The ICT sector in Nigeria is currently boosting the Federal Government’s efforts in job creation as an average of 12 million jobs from 2012 to date have been created. This is in addition to contributing about 10.56 per cent to the growth of Nigeria’s GDP,” he said.

The theme of eNigeria 2014 is: “Creating Market Opportunities for Indigenous ICT Products and Services”.

He said the theme was carefully selected considering the collective desire to create jobs for the teeming youthful population.

He said that ICT holds the greatest promise for achieving the transformation agenda of the present administration, owing to the enormous potentials to drive other sectors as well as for job creation.

“In view of the above achievement, the focus of eNigeria 2014 on technology start-ups and young innovators is considered very timely particularly at this time that World Bank and UK Department for International Development, DFID are supporting Nigeria to create jobs.

“The support which is targeted at creating 460,000 new  jobs across eight critical sectors in the Nigerian economy identified our own Information and Communication Technologies, ICT sector as top most priority.

“This is a great nation that has enough capabilities to step forward and make global rules and employ Nigerians to build global companies as we can no longer afford to hunker behind the “techno-nationalism” at home, while going into the global network of technology collaboration and research.

“In our quest for achieving vision 20:2020 therefore, we must take advantage of this golden opportunity to create jobs for our teeming youths while diversifying our economy from natural resource based to a knowledge-based economy driven by IT,” said the NITDA DG.”

In his remarks, the former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Turner Isoun, emphasized the need for expansion of broadband drive and charged NITDA to leverage the latest broadband initiative, AK Broadband technology to fast-track service delivery to every locality across the country.