Members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), enlisted as Digital Champions under the Federal Government’s Digital Literacy for All (DL4ALL) programme, have trained over 500,000 Nigerians in basic digital skills since the initiative began.
The Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, announced this at the NYSC Headquarters in Abuja while presenting eight laptop computers to Corps Members adjudged outstanding for both training delivery and field performance at the national level.
Recalling that the DL4ALL initiative originated from a Presidential mandate for NITDA to achieve 95 percent digital literacy by 2030, with a mid-term target of 70 percent by 2025, Abdullahi said the agency, in collaboration with the NYSC, trained 17,760 Corps Members nationwide in digital literacy within a year.
He said, “Approximately 80 champions per state are trained in each batch, amounting to nearly 17,760 champions annually nationwide. Each champion is tasked with training at least two Nigerians daily, translating to a minimum of 60 persons monthly.”
Abdullahi noted that the NITDA–NYSC collaboration has also accelerated economic diversification through industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing, and innovation.
He added, “We have a large size of our population, who are not actively in the formal sector, which are doing petty businesses. We have our senior citizens, who are not digitally literate, but we want them to be part of this digital economy we are building.”
The DG revealed that NITDA had developed a National Digital Literacy Framework in collaboration with the NYSC and said the agency will continue to equip Corps Members with IT skills to educate the public on basic digital competencies.
He explained that the target was for each champion to train at least two people daily and sixty in a month, adding, “This training is going to be one-on-one, in marketplaces, religious places, and motor parks, because these people are mostly the vulnerable groups and victims of online fraud.”
In his remarks, NYSC DG Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu commended NITDA for promoting digital literacy among Nigerians.
Nafiu said, “With over 400,000 graduates passing through the Scheme annually, NYSC is sending refined Corps Members with skills and necessary empowerment tools back to society as job creators and employment ambassadors.”
He added that the Corps Members are the perfect channel to drive the critical national objective of digital empowerment for all Nigerians.
Another highlight of the event was the presentation by the NITDA DG of a dummy cheque of N3.5 million to his NYSC counterpart for the Corps digital champions.