Nigeria’s acute job crisis could start abating with the reported partnership between Wema Bank and the Federal Government to upskill young Nigerians with digital skills. The initiative, tagged: FGN/ALAT Digital Skill-Novation Programme, will be launched by the Vice President September 29th in Abuja. 

In a statement released after a meeting between Vice President Kashim Shettima and the bank’s CEO, Mr Moruf Oseni, both parties pledged to deliver the jobs. “WEMA Bank, in partnership with the Office of the Vice President, has concluded arrangements to commence an initiative that will impact two million youths and one million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) across the country,” said Mr Olusola Abiola, Director of Information, office of the Vice President. 

The visit, said Olusola, was at the instance of the bank to present an update report to the Vice President. “The delegation was at the Villa to brief the Vice President on the progress made in the implementation of the FGN-ALAT Digital Skill-Novation Programme.”

Vice President Shettima lauded the commitment and partnership of the bank for the initiative. “I will call on you to be above board. You are a good organisation. I want to thank you most sincerely for your initiative and commitment. Be rest assured that we will fulfill our own part of the bargain.”

After the meeting, Mr Oseni said: “Vice President was very happy, and shortly you will hear from his office of how we want to progress with this programme. Part of this is to help create innovation hubs across the country. Mr President came out with a very bold and audacious plan on how to revive the Nigerian economy. The banks are a key player and we will put in our best to actualise this. If Nigeria does well, the financial institutions will do well. Mr. President is 100 percent on track and we are totally in support of his administration.”

Also, Mr Temitola Adekunle-Johnson, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Job Creation and MSMEs, said the collaboration has the potential to significantly accelerate the government’s job creation agenda. 

“There is power in partnership. Private sector and the public sector coming together can always do more for the people. Mr. President’s ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda cannot be achieved by the government or private sector alone as it requires all hands on deck. So, we dug deep into the private sector to see how they can actually play their own role. In the first instance, they agreed to partner with us on skills acquisition and in other aspects of the scheme that we plan to implement.”

Although the National Bureau of Statistics recently put the jobless rate at 4.1 percent, claiming it revised the methodology for computing the data “in line with international best practices”, most analysts faulted this approach, putting Nigeria’s jobless rate at between 30 and 40 percent. Even the President has acknowledged in several fora that the jobless rate is unacceptably high. 

Ayodele Johnson

Ayodelé is a Lagos-based journalist and the Content and Editorial Coordinator at Meiza. All around the megacity, I am steering diverse lifestyle magazine audiences with ingenious hacks and insights that spur fast, informed decisions in their busy lives.