The National Youth Service Corp, (NYSC) has urged the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to build the Information and Communication Technology Centre in all state secretariat as it has done in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.
The NYSC Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier General Shu’aibu Ibrahim, who stated this during a visit to the NITDA Corporate Headquarters in Abuja today, disclosed that replicating ICT center in all state secretariat would further strengthen the corp.
“We believe that building ICT center in all state secretariat would the Corp to overcome some of its challenges, especially the menaces of the spread of fake news on social media,” he said.
Citing an example with the story of a JSS2 student alleged to have impregnated a Corp member, the NYSC DG described the abuse of social media as worrisome and appealed to NITDA to stem the tide.
“Something has to be done to checkmate the menace of social media to save us from various embarrassments. Things that have happened in the past are now being put forth on social media to look like recent events. People are using the platforms to defraud unsuspected members of the public. You can imagine people creating accounts to defraud Corp members that they can help them to be redeployed.
He recalled that NITDA and NYSC have a long-standing relationship that was dated back to when Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami was the Director-General of the Agency, he stated that he wants to strengthen the collaborations that exist between them.
While responding to the NYSC’s requests, the NITDA Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, CCIE assured that NITDA would look into the requests and start the intervention this year. He noted that the Agency has done a lot in building the capacity of Corp members serving in the Agency.
He stated that it is pertinent for the agencies of government to partner together in helping to build the skills of the Corp members because what most Corp members have is the knowledge, which is most time not translated to skills.
“NYSC is a gateway organisation that can be used to harness the potential of the youths in the country which will aid the nation in his drive to transform the economy to a digital economy. What we noticed is that corp members have the knowledge, but the skill is lacking. We need to help them in transforming the knowledge to skills so it can be beneficial to them and make them self reliance,” said Abdullahi.
Abdullahi noted that the Agency has built ICT hubs and Digital Job Capacity Centre across the country which he said can be used in transforming knowledge to skills. He called on the youths not only to use their devices for social media alone as it is distracting and time wastage but to learn skills online and make money.
“Social media abuse is a burning issues that disturbs everyone; we have to work with other government agencies to collaborate on solving the issue. There is need to regulate it and people should be held responsible for whatever content they posted.