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By Mary Amodu.
The Chief Executive Officer of Builders Hub Impact Investment Program, Barr. Natasha Hadiza Akpoti in collaboration with the Managing Director, Niger Delta Development Commission and the Director General of Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria are set to establish Nigeria’s first Enterprise Innovation Hub
The tripartite agreement to kick-start the investment hub project, was signed recently during a meeting at the NDDC headquarters in Port Harcourt between the NDDC, SMEDAN and Builders Hub Impact Investment Programme, BHIIP.
Speakin, Barr Akpoti, emphasized the need to stimulate indigenous innovations. She said that Nigeria would be better served having more entrepreneurs than academics, noting that the future lies with entrepreneurship. “we will focus on areas where training expertise can create more jobs” she said
The NDDC Managing Director, Mr. Nsima Ekere, said that the meeting was a follow up to a previous engagement with Director-General of SMEDAN, Dr Dikko Radda, at his office in Abuja.
Ekere said that the partnership with SMEDAN was one way of proving to Nigerians that inter-agency collaboration and synergy could work. “We have different kinds of agencies and initiatives in this country with different and specified core mandates and I believe that if all of them can come together, it would be for the good of all. I believe that NDDC and SMEDAN are setting an example for Nigeria.
The NDDC boss noted that the agreement is to create more jobs for the people of the Niger Delta, to fight unemployment and poverty, to ensure that militancy is eradicated in the Niger Delta.
“I believe that we can create new jobs for our people, we can build the economy of the Niger Delta, but more importantly, we want to ensure that the youths are engaged. If the youths are engaged on a daily basis, there won’t be time for them to be planning mischief.”
“The idea is that we will start with one of the IDC’s owned by SMEDAN in the Niger Delta but ultimately, our intention is to see that all the IDC’s owned by SMEDAN in the Niger Delta region are revamped and revitalized. And we must pay particular attention to our women and youths.”
In a similar vein, The Director-General of SMEDAN, Dr Radda said that the agency was well positioned to create jobs and alleviate poverty in the country and always ready to work with the NDDC in the implementation of its work plan for the development of the Niger Delta region, noting that SMEDAN had 23 Industrial Development Centers, IDC, nationwide and four of the centers were located in the Niger Delta.
Dr Radda lamented that facilities in the IDCs were dilapidated with most of the equipment obsolete, coupled with the problem of land encroachment. According to the Director General, SMEDAN was planning to convert the IDCs into enterprise clusters where enterprises involved in similar products and activities will be located in the same place with all necessary machines, equipment and trainings provided for them.
The Director-General commended the Managing Director for identifying and acknowledging the importance of the agency in helping to actualize the mandate of the Commission.
Earlier, the NDDC Director, Commercial and Industrial Development, Mr Anietie Usen, said that the concept of growth pole was captured in the Niger Delta Regional Development Master Plan.
According to him “the concept has become more academic than real. It has just been paper work. So, we are here to change paper work into hard work.”
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