The Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji. Sa’ad Abubakar 111 has called on States, Local Government and other stakeholders to support the skills training and development initiatives of the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) for economic growth and development of the country.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to his palace by the immediate past Acting Director-General of the Industrial Training Fund, (ITF), Mr. Dickson Onouha, the Sultan said countries such as Japan, Pakistan and even Rwanda that is recovering from a genocidal war are making progress because of emphases placed on human capital development.
“Rwanda has recovered tremendously from its genocidal war due to seriousness attached to building the human capital”, the Sultan said.
While pointing out the dangers posed by youth unemployment in the country, Sultan Abubakar urged ITF to re-strategise and pursue its ongoing skills training for job creation programmes with vigor, stating that the current global recession should not constitute an impediment to the policy thrust of the Fund.
Speaking earlier, Onuoha, who is currently the Director of Procurement at the ITF said he was in the palace to brief the royal father of the scheduled flag-off of the 5th phase of the National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP) in Sokoto.
The programme according to him was conceived by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to fast track the realization of the Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP).
Under this phase the ITF will train 500 young Nigerians each from 18 states of the Federation and the FCT. A total of 9,500 youths will be trained in different trade areas for a period of three months, Onuoha noted.
The ITF boss commended the Sultan for his fatherly role and peaceful disposition towards citizens of the country and appealed to him to rally support of other traditional rulers in the country to counsel their youth to embrace skills acquisition training.
