Nigeria Minister of Communications Mr Shittu Adebayo, few days ago paid a visit to the Co-creation Hub in Yaba; the silicon valley of Nigerian technology. During his visit, the minister assured members of the ICT community that the Nigerian government was considering tax holidays and special intervention funds for the sector in a bid to achieve their promise of providing three million jobs by 2018.
“As you all know, the ICT innovations is powering economies across the globe, creating employments and wealth. It is impacting on the way we live and the way we do businesses; the Buhari administration is at the forefront of diversifying our economy and he is resolved to develop the ICT sector through Local Content initiative. Government will support Yaba and all ICT hubs across the country because it is a veritable platform to achieve our ICT and job creations objective.”
Speaking on the same goal, Afolabi Imoukhuede, Senior Special Adviser, SSA to the President on Job Creation/Youth Empowerment further expressed that the government were looking to simplify operations in the ICT sector and as such were considering incentives like tax holidays, etc. “We are working on the details. We have a million jobs to be created this year and we have a target to create three million jobs over the next three years-2016-19. What is keen for me as the SSA on job creation is for us to be able to look at which sectors we can create jobs, and ICT, for us is a key area for job creations.”
Highlighting the success of ICT in mapping the landscape of national development in other climes like India and Singapore, the minister commended CC Hub for its innovation in the Nigerian context over the years and going by his words, a CC Hub-like model might be coming to the federal capital as well as two other states in the country; the minister’s home state Oyo (Ibadan) and the President’s home town, Katsina. “We are going to replicate what is happening here in Yaba in other parts of the country in partnership with stakeholders. We are going to start in Ibadan and Katsina state in the next three months. Both the governors of Oyo and Katsina have agreed to provide facilities for the establishment of these hubs.Through National Technology Development Agency, NITDA, we are going to introduce ICT Innovation fund to cater for early startups and ICT incubation scheme to support establishment of more high growth incubators across the country,” he said.
He further challenged young entrepreneurs at the hub, asking them to appropriately express the challenges the sector is faced with together with possible intervention programmes they’d like for the government to explore for sustainability and better development.
I have one already Mr Minister! Please include more technologically viable states in your replication plan. Say, Kano, PortHarcourt, Aba?
Image Credit: Techpoint.ng