This Day (Lagos)
June 20, 2003 
Posted to the web June 20, 2003 
Abimbola Akosile

Lagos State Government, to ensure quality modern education for the state, has intensified efforts at incorporating Information and Communication Technology (ICT) programme in youth education policies. This is in line with the administration's goal of making more than 50 percent of school children in Lagos e-literate by the year 2007.

To this end, the government has made provision of IT facilities for the various levels of educational system a top priority. It has begun to provide the facilities in some selected primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions in the state.

Disclosing this yesterday at the commissioning of the University of Lagos IT Centre, which was donated by Zenith Bank Plc, the Lagos State Governor, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, while commending the efforts of the bank in the private initiative, said Information and creativity would give the nation a competitive edge and ensure higher levels of competence.

Tinubu, who was represented at the occasion by his deputy, Chief Femi Pedro, declared that no country can afford to ignore ICT, whatever its stage of development, or else such a country may find itself excluded from the global market.

"Any effort aimed at deliberately mitigating our exclusion as a country from the global market, must be applauded, encouraged and supported. Notably, Zenith Bank has been at the vanguard of several ICT initiatives and the commissioning of this IT centre here in UNILAG, being sponsored by Zenith is a testimony of the resolve of the bank to digitally empower the Nigerian youth", he said.

He further implored all the potential beneficiaries of the IT centre, who are to have free access, to put it to good use and encourage other well-meaning Nigerians, by coming up with innovations that would propel the country into the digital age. "The wealth of nations is no longer equated on the scale of the amount of natural resource endowment, but on the quality and depth of the knowledge-based workforce", he stated.