Lagos — A Trustee of the Nigeria Network of Non-Governmental Organisations (NNNGO), Ms. Yemisi Ransome-Kuti, has called on Nigerian youth to de-emphasise undue reliance on governments and the private sector, and to promote self-development through the use of ICT.

She gave the advice in a key-note address delivered on her behalf by the Network's Membership, Advocacy & Campaign Co-ordinator, at the 1st National ICT Conference for Youth Development held recently at the Women Centre, Lagos.

At the forum with a theme 'Exploring the Frontiers of Information & Communications Technology for Youth Development', Ransome-Kuti said the Nigerian youth must free itself from the quagmire of development.

However, to do this, she said "genuine effort must be made to build partnerships, committing yourselves to good causes and in mapping out personal growth plans that will be effectively pursued with NGOs, Governments and the private sector as partners and supporters."

The NGO boss said the missing link between youth development and ICT "is the failure of our youth to fully deploy the numerous benefits of ICT to their full benefits", according to an information provided by Mr. Kunle Idowu, NNNGO's media consultant.

She said, "A disturbingly large number of our youth have over the years waited for handouts from their fathers, mothers, uncles, NGOs, governments and the private sector so much that they have forgotten to put their creativity into action, that is, thinking creatively out of the box and in using the ICT effectively."

In his welcome address, the National PRO of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) Mr. Hamid Abiola, explained that the global trend in ICT awareness has become a stable concept; where every facet of human endeavour in the present day world requires ICT skills to work.

"Information and communication are essential tools for effective Public Relations and Career Development. From e-banking to e-commerce; e-learning, e-agriculture e-payment, e-employment and e-government; the world has become a micro system for implementing every idea and concept."

"Young ones," he added, "are the greatest explorers of ICT resource and opportunities all over the world. Today the NYCN is faced with the challenges of increasing the awareness of the youth in the ICT and subsequent facilitation of enabling opportunities for over 84 million Nigerian youths through the ICT world".

This measure, he said, is a means towards re-positioning the youths for greater opportunities, which is a necessary tool for national growth and development.

On the Conference objectives, he said efforts would be made to create mass awareness for youths in ICT and its immense opportunities as alternative to job sourcing, create platform for access to ICT training.

There are also moves for empowerment through NYCN intervention project - One Computer to One Youth Project, and also plans to establish platform for collaborating with government and private sectors in combating ICT related economic and financial crimes (cyber crime) among the youth.

Abiola enumerated the constraints and impediments confronting the Nigerian youth, and said there are over 150 voluntary youth organisations affiliated to the NYCN throughout the country.

"Though the Council has a fine structure, it has low strength for tackling the problem of capacity building for her teeming members. Today, the nation itself is not left out of the global crisis of employment provision for youth".

To him, the antidote to the peculiar unemployment syndrome is the provision of trainings and basic facilities for developing expertise skills of the willing youths so as to reposition them for enabling opportunities of life.

Abiola said innovative ideas is the key to the nation's industrial growth in a country of over 140 million people where 80 million belong to the working class and only 16 million are gainfully employed, leaving another 54 million unemployed and roaming about the streets searching for the jobs that are not available, and 80 per cent of the unemployed being youths.

"We seek to bridge the vacuum created in our economic system by unemployment through the development of ICT driven entrepreneurship as an alternative to the unemployment scourge fighting our country. Any nation that wants real and sustainable growth must prioritise ICT and entrepreneurship in national development strategies", he said.

To him, the use of ICT is in fact one of the major reasons for the gap between the developed and developing nations -the digital divide.