Abolaji Adebayo 
The Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, has assured the youths in Kano who are enrolled into the 3 Million Technical Training (3MTT) programme that their dreams would soon be realised despite the looting and destruction of the Kano Digital Park by some protesters.
The minister said the government was already getting support to renovate the park. He wrote on his x (twitter) handle after the incident: “To our @3MTTNigeria community and all the amazing young talent in #Kano, your dreams are valid! This was just a few weeks ago at our #3MTT Hackathon in Kano.
We are already getting support to make sure the park is renovated for your use.” On Thursday last week, the protesters in the #EndBadGovernance agitation descended on the ICT Park, scheduled to be commissioned today, Thursday, August 8, 2024, carted away about 150 world-class personal computers (PCs) and laptops before setting the digital centre on fire.
The minister lamented the wanton destruction while featuring on a Channels TV programme and updated the public on the level of damages on the multi-million Naira ICT capacity building project in Kano. Estimating that the attack by the protesters would run into several millions of naira, the minister hinted that to mitigate the huge losses on the project, a Kano based company had expressed its interest to help renovate the Park.
He said: “This property is one of the properties that the last administration actually worked on, but they didn’t deliver it. A number of things were incomplete. It was only just two months ago that the last set of equipment was put there. And we just agreed two weeks ago to launch the facility next week.” Speaking on the level of damages of the facility in terms of materials and monetary value, the minister said: “It will be millions if not billions because it’s a lovely building.
Apart from the building, I think, on the top of my head, we have between 123 to 150 computers both PCs and laptops there. “In fact, what was missing was that the generator needed a little more work, and the power back up needed to be done in the space before we could start using the computers. t was the last we asked the contractor to supply and we were meant to go in and put it to good use but this is part of what you get with protests.”
Reacting to comments by critics that insinuated that such a facility should not have been located in Kano, Tijani dismissed the insinuation, pointing out that Kano had the highest number of applicants for the ongoing 3 Million Technical Training (3MTT) programme of the Federal Government. He clarified: “I’ve seen people make very ridiculous comments like why you would put a centre like that in Kano as if the young people in Kano don’t have the rights to dream, as if they don’t have the rights to be part of the digital economy.
“Kano is one of the places where we have the highest number of applications for the 3MTT and there are a lot of young people there who want to be part of the programme, they want to acquire skills that will make them part of the global economy.” He assured that despite the vandalisation of the Kano ICT Park by the irate protesters, the Federal Government was committed to the completion of the project in view of the strategic importance to its current digital economy drive.
