PHOTOS: Obaseki inaugurates Edo Tech Park, to produce 15,000 software engineers

Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo, has commissioned the Edo Tech Park, a software engineering and leadership training institute.

The governor noted that the park will produce at least 15,000 world-class software engineers in the state within the next five years.

Obaseki, who spoke during the commissioning of the take-off campus for the Edo Tech Park in Okhoromi community, Oredo LGA, said his government aims to transform Edo into the technology outsourcing nerve centre in Africa.

He commended the World Bank for supporting the government in empowering the youths and preparing them for the future.

“If not for the support of the World Bank, I am not sure that we would have been able to do as much as we did for our people, which made them vote us for a second term,” Obaseki said.

“Today, we are starting another journey and are fortunate to have the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri and the Managing Director of the Bank, to see what we as a people are trying to do to reposition ourselves for the future.

“We haven’t waited for them to help us design what our future should be like or help us start the journey to the future. We didn’t wait with our hands behind our back for the future to be realised.

“But to show them that this is what we have started and how we have organized ourselves to begin to confront the challenges of the future. Having seen the way that we have organised and positioned ourselves, we hope, as you did a decade ago, you will now renew your partnership with us.

“Support us with the necessary linkages, particularly the technical support; we realized that technical support is more valuable than cash, to help us access a new path, a new direction for our young people in this country,” the governor pleaded.”

Obaseki further noted, “We are renewing our whole workforce and creating the foundational basis for the future, which will affect how we organize government, in terms of e-governance; how we organize our food production, in terms of agriculture; how we organize our social spaces, and how we link our past, our culture, our artefacts and our monuments.

“With our creativity and technology to help create a special niche for us as a people and present something that is genuinely African to the world.”

On his part, Mari Elka Pangestu, managing director, development policy and partnership at World Bank, expressed satisfaction with the government’s programmes and reforms aimed at providing job opportunities for Edo youths.

Some students at the Edo Tech Park in Okhoromi Community, Oredo Local Government Area of Edo State