May 28, 2018

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) had urged the government to invest more and initiate a political will to encourage the development of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in all sectors.

Mr Macaulay Olushola, the National Professional Officer, Communication and Information Sector UNESCO said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.

Olushola said that developing ICT in every sector of government would reduce outsourcing of local jobs to expatriates.

“I think the government needs to put more money into developing ICT.

“It is an open ended market, a virgin market where if government can put a lot of money and encourage our youths to go into it, it will generate revenue.

“Investing in it will reduce expatriates coming to take our Nigerian money back to their country because we still have gaps in terms of expertise in ICT.

“The government needs to invest more money and have a political will to possibly encourage ICT in all our sectors,” he said.

He said the organisation was training youths in its YouthMobile Project in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and was putting measures in place to extend it to Lagos State.

Olushola said UNESCO was engaging the Federal Government in training youths in every state for inclusive youth development in ICT.

“We are trying to see within the Nigeria-UNESCO Plan of Cooperation how we can engage the Federal Government on the need to empower at least 100 youths in all the 36 states of the country.

“We believe that at the end of the training it should allow us have computer hubs in each of the states.

“This will be for sustainability of the skills they acquired and it will replicate what we call Computer Village in some states,’’ he said.

According to him, each state should be able to sustain the trainings and engagements after the organisation has pioneered such project.