The initiative, aimed at Youth Corps members, was launched concurrently in seven NYSC sites across the country.

The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, declared the program open at the NYSC Camp in Kubwa, Abuja, and stated that the program’s main goal was to equip Nigerians with contemporary and pertinent digital literacy and skills that would expose, prepare, and connect them to in-demand career opportunities that are available in the global digital economy.

The program is anticipated to help Nigerians find employment possibilities in the field of the digital economy,

Kashifu said, “This projection implies that many Nigerians, both in the IT and non-IT spaces, must acquire digital literacy and skills to thrive in this current fourth industrial revolution.”

“Given our huge population of about 218 million, of which about 50 percent is constituted by youths, we have enough potential human capital to drive the data economy, and that is why we have decided to flag off this program in seven NYSC strategic camps.”

“We believe that the NYSC camps hold the brightest and most intelligent Nigerian youths.

We believe that corps members will not only benefit from this program but will create a multiplier effect by transferring the knowledge and skills acquired during this program to other Nigerians, and this will help the country realize its target of 95 percent digitally literate Nigerians by 2030. There is no better time to embrace digital transformation than now.

“The world is moving away from a natural resource-based economy to a digital and knowledge-based economy, more attention and efforts are being put into human capital and digital technologies and Nigeria should not be left out of this fast-moving train,” he added.

Global competitiveness refers to the ability of nations to supply high-quality goods and services at reasonable costs, resulting in satisfactory returns.

He said this during a lecture delivered at the National Defence College in Abuja while being represented by Engr. Aliyu A. Aziz, Director General, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).

In his lecture titled: “Digital Economy and National Development: Building Nigeria’s Resilience for Global Competitiveness,” Pantami said Nigeria must raise the bar by competing globally with other developed countries.

“By competing with ourselves, we will be missing out on external factors. We should improve and be competitive globally.”

The establishment of the National Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre which was spearheaded by the Ministry will provide Nigeria many benefits that would transform the nation’s economy into innovation and entrepreneurship driven economy.

Responding to why Nigeria was rushing to launch a 5G network when other network generations such as 3G were not fully maximized, he said the country needed to take advantage of every technological advancement.

“We can’t stay in one place. 5G has lots of potentials which will be even beneficial to those in rural areas. When there is a new technology, we have to tap into it and move forward.”

5G technology can solve some of the pressing challenges in the country since the technology provides real-time services and platforms.

On data harmonization, he said, in government data will be gathered into a single data repository, lots of work has been put into it and meetings have been ongoing.