Tap into N5Bn ICT Honey-pot, Akano Urges Nigerians

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) offers business and educational opportunities worth over N5 billion annually and effort must be made to harness the hidden treasure in the sector, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.
Mr. Tim Akano, chief executive officer and managing director, New Horizons, stated this last week at the International Certification Programme at Babcock University, Ogun State.
Akano urged Nigerians to take advantage of the opportunities in the sector to improve knowledge, not only for the development of the nation but to match the global ICT expectations.
He however regretted that only about 35 per cent of the over 140 million Nigerians are aware of the powers of ICT.
“ICT in this country has  offered so many opportunities for us but unfortunately, a good number of Nigerians are not aware of this. It is needful that Nigerians, both youths and adults take advantage of these opportunities and become educated even in international ICT courses to enable them exploit the advantages that Nigeria’s estimated annual N5 billion worth ICT market opportunities has to offer”.
Akano said that New Horizons through its International Certification Programme has graduated 253 undergraduates at the Babcock and Covenant universities respectively.
He stated that 150 students of Covenant university have passed and become Internationally Certified in CNA, CCNP, Adobe, Dreamweaver and Project management while 103 students of Babcock university bagged international certifications in Comptia A+, Oracle SQL, OCA, Vista and Server all at a sitting.
Akano said the impressive outcomes in the Universities were consolidation of the great feats achieved by the two institutions in the recent past under the International Certification programme.
“It requires a dynamic minded university management to take the kind of bold initiatives adopted by Covenant and Babcock universities and this is a challenge to other universities to follow suit and produce international ICT knowledge students”, Akano said.