By Kenneth Udeh
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Science and Technology, Senator Uche Ekwunife, representing Anambra Central Senatorial District, Friday, organized the 18th edition of her skills acquisition and capacity building training progamme at the Ekwunife Centre, Awka, where participants were drawn from various wards.
The training workshop, which was supervised by the National Board for Technology Incubation (NBTI); Bioresources Development Centre, National Biotechnology Development Agency (NBDA) and SHEDA Science and Technology Complex (SHESTCO) had in attendance women, youths, and students who took turns to shower encomiums on Ekwunife for conceiving and sustaining the initiative over the years.
At the end of the three-week training exercise, beneficiaries were provided with starter kits and funds to commence practice immediately.
Mr. Amonye Michael of the NBTI, who lectured agro-entrepreneur trainees on the processes of business identification and value addition to raw materials, disclosed that agro products when innovatively processed would enhance the market value of raw materials.
“We are grateful to Ekwunife for giving this training to her constituents. This shows how much value she places on human capacity development. This will allow the constituents to garner some knowledge that will change their economic fortune, he said.
On his part, Director of NBTI, Dr. Ugochukwu Okafor, described technology as the key to Nigeria’s economic prosperity.
Speaking earlier, Ekwunife stressed the need to develop a vibrant manufacturing economy for the advancement of the Nigerian economic master plan, adding that governments at all levels must promote and encourage, innovative manufacturing as well as Medium, Small Enterprises( MSMEs) particularly amongst Nigerian youth.
“The turnaround of the country’s dwindling economic fortunes would only be possible through concerted employment in the agricultural and manufacturing sector,” she stated.