The Minister of Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani has said that over 550,000 Nigerians have applied for the 3 million Technical Talent Programme.
The Minister made the disclosure in a video shared on his official Twitter account, now X.
“The government agenda is to create decent and quality jobs for young people across the country. As part of that agenda, we have started a new project we call the 3 million Technical Talent. This is a programme where we aim over the next four years to train three million technical talents and also find sustainable ways to put them into jobs,” Tijani said.
The programme was announced on October 13, 2023, and targeted at generating a pipeline of technical talent across all the states in Nigeria.
The government later disclosed that it signed N1bn deal with telecommunications company IHS Towers to fund the programme.
“We are happy to announce that while we were targeting 30,000 for the first batch, we have actually received over 550,000 applications from across the country. The spread of the application is why we are deeply excited,” he added.
The minister said the ministry has been engaging states like Cross River, Kwara and Ogun States where they are looking to share their infrastructure to deliver the programme.
“I think one thing that is important to note with why we are doing this, it is not just another training. We all know that technology under this government is becoming a major part of how we do things and how we reposition public services.
“But you can’t really leverage technology if you don’t have the talent to drive it. So, for technology to truly work for Nigeria, we need a very deep workforce that can power our nation.
“The beauty also is that the world generally is adopting technology and there is the shortage of people and talent for this. Most of the European countries have challenges with aging population which means they are looking up to countries like Nigeria where our population is over 60 per cent young people under the age of 25.”
He said the programme is not only targeted at building a workforce locally but also make Nigeria become a “net exporter of talents. We would like our young people who are technologically savvy to be able to work remotely for companies all over the world.”
Tijani believes that the programme will become a game-changer in the coming years.
