Leverage emerging digital capacities to reduce unemployment, says Pantami

Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, has urged Nigerians to leverage emerging digital capacities to curb the rising wave of unemployment in the country.

Pantami said this when he recently met with the Abuja Chapter of the National Information Technology Reporters Association at a press briefing, noting that Nigeria will promote digitisation activities that will support e-health, e-agriculture and other automated transactions.

Commenting on the re-designation of the Communications Ministry, Pantami said it was done to help Nigeria tap into the benefits of the digital economy, adding that the re-designation would assist in making other sectors key into the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the Federal Government and help the Ministry to capture its objective in keeping with the best global practices.

The minister assured that Nigeria will key into and explore cloud computing, nanotechnology, Fifth Generation (5G) communications, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics and leverage the skills in Nigerian youths to make them employers of labour instead of emploso they can acquire enduring skills that will make them be potential employers rather than potential employees.

On the safety of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), Pantami explained that the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) was vetting the content of the proposed Executive Order on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) Protection, one the police authorities have been directed to locate key telecom facilities for surveillance.