The Jigawa State Governor, Muhammadu Badaru, has urged youths in Nigeria to key into the digital technologies and focus more on critical thinking to provide solutions to economic and security challenges.
Governor Badaru says this is the only way to move the country forward.
He made the call at the 1st Jigawa Innovation Summit with the theme: ‘Creating a Viable Innovative Ecosystem for Economic Development.’
The Governor reiterated that ”critical thinking offered opportunities for Nigerian youths to be open minded which will in turn help harness opportunities in their environment such as business and job creation solutions to challenges as well as increase income generation.”
Oil economy
He further said that the vision and focus is to bring world of innovations to the state, noting that oil economy has been taken over by new techologies globally.
”Electric cars are on the rise, solar energy is becoming cheaper, wind energy becoming supportive, and the unknown fuel energy-drive currently ongoing can surely drop the demand of oil, and if this happens, national income will continue to decline and that will affect all the states of the federation, including Jigawa.
“We have to look at the areas where we have competitiveness and see how best we can make our economy work through those areas. Like I have always said, we can achieve this largely in Agriculture. We have vast land and water for irrigation in Jigawa. We will continue to focus on how to develop Agriculture and its value chain,” the Governor stated.
Governor Badaru said; “I want to challenge this Summit to see how best we can to improve in what we are doing and how best we can to create jobs around the value chains in Nigeria digitally.
“We have Informatics Kazaure that produced so many IT professionals in the country. So I expect this Summit to bring to our table in our educational arena so that we can do more in developing our youth by making them employers, not just employee.”
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, commended Jigawa State for its drive in Digital Economy, saying that the State has showed willingness to support the effort of the Nigerian Government and collaboration, to develop indigenous digital economy in the country.
Dr Pantami said the rate of unemployment in the country motivated Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to think outside the box by focusing more on creating potential employers rather than potential employees.
He said, “If you enrolled people in university and they graduated without sufficient skills, they will never be self-reliant, they will always go around looking for jobs. But when you provide digital skills for your citizens, they will be employers of others, which Jigawa Innovation Summit should also focus on.”
The Minister cited Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, second richest person in the world, as the perfect example potential employer, who million of people are working under him.
Dr Patanmi also recounted on how Netherland used digital technology to boost its agriculture activities despite having lesser landmass compare to some states in Nigeria.
He added that “if Jigawa State deploy digital innovation to agriculture, it will go along way in creating many jobs and generating revenue for the Nigerian and State Governments.”
The Director General, National Information Technology Development Agency ,NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa recalled that the journey to Innovation Summit is more exciting than the theme of the event, because the journey started in January last year when the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, commissioned Hadejia Community IT Centre.
He said, “Delivering his Keynote Address at the commissioning, the Minister explained potential benefit of Digital Economy in our country and Jigawa State in general. Our Governor showed interest in Jigawa State’s readiness to embrace the initiative, and the Minister responded positively by directing me to engage all the stakeholders to ensure Jigawa benefit immensely from Digital Economy.”
“Whatever the state government, ministry and NITDA are doing are in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s economic diversification agenda, therefore all the credits should go to Mr President, because he campaigned before election and after he was voted to lead the country, he appointed my boss and mentor as minister, who also recommended me for this position,” he added.
Zero-oil revenue
Mr Inuwa maintained that with new measures being put in place in regard to innovation and also what Governor Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar is doing in the state, Jigawa is in the forefront of zero-oil revenue.
He explained that innovation has been generally defined as the processing and taking idea from inception to impact, stressing that innovation is not all about Information Technology, it is also something that has to do with invention, in terms commercialisation, business model, customer experience and organisational structure.
The DG said the event attended by IT experts, entrepreneurs, academia, private sectors and other stakeholders was to put heads together and look for competitive advantage in Jigawa; look at what each Local Government has, and come up with a strategy that can help unlock opportunities and create prosperity for the citizens.
“Jigawa State has a lot of potentials in terms of agriculture resources. Jigawa is the largest producer of dates, hibiscus and gum Arabic in Nigeria, and largest producer of sesames in the whole Africa. The state also stands third in rice production, and we are utilising less than 10% of our arable land. Recently, the Executive Governor of Jigawa, Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar negotiated with stakeholders from Mexico to boost hibiscus production, which is a big plus for us as a nation.
“All these can be achieved through digital technologies; this is why we are building IT centres across the country. So far, we have established 18 IT community centres out of 27 local governments, and we will build in the remaining ones. This is to prepare our future generation and create job opportunities, not only government jobs, but for youths to become self-reliant,” Mr Inuwa explained.
“We are coming with strategy where the state government can provide enabling environment that will unlock opportunities. In some countries, government job is the last resort, because you will make more money in business than in government; you will have more time in your private business than government,” he added.
The event was organised by the state government in collaboration with National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Youth Coalition for Development (YCD), an NGO that canvasses youth engagement in changing the status quo for the betterment of Nigerians.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
