The Jigawa State Governor Muhammadu Badaru Abubakar has urged Nigerian youths to key into the digital technologies and focus more on critical thinking in order to find solutions to Nigeria’s economic and security challenges.
Badaru made this call at the 1st Jigawa Innovation Summit with the theme: ‘Creating a Viable Innovative Ecosystem for Economic Development’ organised by the state government in collaboration with National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Youth Coalition for Development (YCD).
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The governor said it is only through critical thinking that the minds of Nigerian youths could be opened to see the opportunities and create jobs.
“We have to look at the areas where we have competitiveness and see how best we can make our economy work through those areas. Like I have always said, we can achieve this largely in agriculture. We have vast land and water for irrigation in Jigawa. We will continue to focus on how to develop agriculture and its value chain’’, he said.
Speaking at the summit, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, commended Jigawa State for its digital economy drive.
Dr Pantami said the rate of unemployment in the country motivated the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy to think outside the box by focusing more on creating potential employers rather than potential employees.
He said, “If you enrolled people in university and they graduated without sufficient skills, they will never be self-reliant, they will always go around looking for jobs. But when you provide digital skills for your citizens, they will be employers of others, which Jigawa Innovation Summit should also focus on’’, he said.
The minister cited Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, second richest person in the world, as the perfect example of employer with millions of people working under him.
