The federal government has commenced registration for a training programme to equip 10 million Nigerians with financial inclusion literacy.

The training aims to equip Nigerians, particularly women and youths, with essential financial skills, investment knowledge, and digital competencies to build sustainable wealth.

Vice President Kashim Shettima inaugurated the registration in Abuja during a virtual meeting of the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion (PreCEFI), six professional bodies and other development partners.

The vice president was represented by the special adviser to the president on economic affairs, Tope Fasua.

The registration process is to be undertaken by WAWUAfrica—Africa’s premier integrated leadership and organisational excellence ecosystem.

The development partners included the World Bank, WAWUAfrica, the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), among others.

“The initiative will become one of the flagship programmes of President Bola Tinubu in terms of its impact on the Nigerian people and how it can transmogrify into a global impact.

“I commend the widely focused areas of the potential impact to cover digital literacy and information technology, IT literacy, financial literacy, economic literacy, service delivery literacy, and healthcare.

”It will also cover wellness, creative arts and design, business and entrepreneurship, skills trades and engineering skills, hospitality and tourism,” Mr Shettima said.

Mr Shettima applauded WAWUAfrica and the other development partners for collaborating effectively in actualising the training programme.

“We believe that this programme will continue to expand in terms of partnership and collaboration until we achieve the maximum utility and mileage required,” he added.

The technical adviser to the president on economic and financial inclusion, Nurudeen Zauro, said conversations were ongoing with all stakeholders on how to educate Nigerians to participate in the training process.

He stated that citizens must be well guided to avoid being hoodwinked into paying for the training, as well as to log in to the portal to register.

“We don’t want to have a situation whereby anybody will be requested to make any form of payment.

“We also want them to be well guided on where to log in to have their details imputed onto the system to successfully get trained,” Mr Zauro said.

In February, PreCEFI signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with six professional bodies to design the training programmes to strengthen Nigeria’s financial and enterprise workforce.

The professional bodies were also mandated to design certification pathways, digital skills initiatives, and mentorship platforms for the programmes.

The bodies included the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), the National Institute of Credit Administration (NICA), and others.

(NAN)