The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has said his government is taking deliberate steps to prepare young people in the State for the future, training and equipping them to creatively deploy technology to solve global problems.
Obaseki, who spoke to journalists in Benin City, said his government has spurred growth of the State’s economy, by deploying technology and promoting innovation.
According to him, “We hope to produce the most tech talent in Nigeria. We already have a partnership with Decagon where we have trained about 7,000 engineers and in the next five years, Edo will produce 10, 000 to 15,000 tech experts in Nigeria.”
“We are working with investors to set up tech parks where more young people will work, play and provide solutions for technology.”
He added, “In terms of infrastructure, we have ensured that there is a master plan and something to guide future governments as to what needs to be done and in what areas. We must make sure we introduce more technology into designing our infrastructure.”
The governor further noted, “Healthcare is about people and we have rebuilt and reaccredited our school of nursing and it is the best in the Country today. We are also rebuilding our School of Medical Health Technology which will train the human capacity required for the basic healthcare system in the State.
“We have been successful in job creation and thanks to our partners as we have created over 308,000 jobs today, directly or indirectly through our Edojobs programmes. We achieved these through various programmes like job training and skills development, amongst others.”
On security, Obaseki said, “Edo has become very safe despite pockets of incidents towards our Northern border but we are working hard to improve on our security situation. We have achieved this by collaborating with communities. Our vigilante and security network has been very instrumental to these success stories in the area of security.
“We have gotten support in building our command and control centers that give us details of every crime that happens in Edo State.”