By Bobby Oshoke
In response to the rising rate of insecurity in the country, and the need to equip Nigerian youths with relevant skills, Chinese tech faint HUAWEI along with TD Africa, Access Bank, Universities and others have come together to organize an ICT youth training program.
This was made known at the HUAWEI ICT job fair event which held in Abuja at the International Conference Centre, ICC.
Speaking at the event the Deputy Managing Director of HUAWEI Nigeria, Mr. Osita Nweze said the tech faint was partnering with stakeholders for the development of ICT in the country.
“For almost 6 years HUAWEI has partnered with schools and universities to provide ICT training for Nigerians. We are giving a platform for those who are into, and those who are interested in ICT to come on board and become professionally trained ICT staff”.
He noted that so far, HUAWEI has setup over 100 ICT centre’s in the country and have projected to build over 200 new centres by 2025 to train 30,000 students in both academic and industrial qualification.
“We partner primarily with universities, currently we’ve partnered with over 100 universities to give them access to our ICT academies and programs such as this one”
Also speaking at the event the Managing Director of Coscharis, Mr. Sunday Okoro lauded the efforts of HUAWEI in alleviating the unemployment situation in Nigeria and described Huawei as an “Organization that values relationships, and places emphasis on Human Capital development through series of trainings and certifications.
He also expressed dismay at the present state of unemployment and insecurity in Nigeria and pledged to employ youths who go through the program.
” we have a lot of youths that are jobless, but technology drives every sector, and for those that will be chosen today we ask that you take this serious. We have taken a look at our partners and decided to emulate them, we are going to make a commitment to continually employ and recruit the youths who go through this training, the following trainings and are certified by HUAWEI” He said.
In his goodwill the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello who was represented by Prof. Kabri Bala, described how HUAWEI approached the University in 2018 to request a partnership to contribute towards equipping students with highly sort after skills. He said “this partnership, though young has yielded benefits for the two parties, for instance the ABU has enrolled over 1,300 students on the HUAWEI talent portal to train and certify them in ICT skills such as; Datacom, routing and switching, wireless technologies and artificial intelligence.
The training program is one of the best in Africa in teaching hands on skills, and the students have gone on to win National and multinational awards. He said
Other dignitaries present at the event include; Mrs. Juliet Emeruonye, the HUAWEI HR person, Professor Paulinus okwelle, the executive secretary of National commission of colleges of Education, Deputy Executive Secretary of National University Commission (NUC), Dr. Christopher Maiyaki, the VC of Tafawa Balewa University Professor Muhammad A. Abdulazeez, and Mrs Chioma Chimere, CMD of TD Africa distribution limited among others.
