Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Kwusike Onyeama, has said for Nigeria to be a great country, it is the youth that will make her great.
He said if Nigerian youth take their studies in school seriously and embark on entrepreneurship, the sky would be the limit.
Onyeama stated this over the weekend while addressing pupils and students during the flag off of the distribution of educational materials to five different schools in Udi local government area of Enugu state who were given over 1,000 various study materials donated by a Chinese Internet Communication Technology (ICT) firm, Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited, although the gesture was reportedly attracted by Onyeama’s NGO, the Kwusike Foundation.
Onyeama told the students that China, many years ago, was a poor country but due to hard work and the determination to excel, the country has become one of the richest nations in the world today, adding that Nigeria could make the same mark if the citizens, particularly the young ones like the students/pupils remained focused, dedicated and committed to working hard while contributing to the nation’s growth and development.
He told the students that: “You are going to be able to make Nigeria one of the best and richest countries in the world.
“In the past, China was not rich but today, China is one of the richest countries in the world because they are working hard. You must study and study. You must have the opportunity to be anything you want to be in life.
“China has sent rockets to mars; Chinese have gone to the moon; this was a country, not very long ago, was poor, but because of their hard work, China is one of the top most nations today.”
In his remark, the Deputy Managing Director of Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited, Mr. Kelvin Yang said that in the next three years, his company would be training 30,000 Nigerian students, in spite of having trained over 17,000 Nigerian students and 20,000 engineers so far.
He stated that Huawei offered free ICT training programmes to different levels of the society in Nigeria in order to fully develop an ICT talent ecosystem, adding : “We are supporting Nigeria to become a hub for technology and innovation in Africa.”
Yang explained that the determination of “our Nigerian students is gradually positioning Nigeria on the global map for outstanding performance,” recalling that “in 2020 under the Huawei global ICT competition, Nigerian students team won 1st place for cloud computing and AI Technology Worldwide.”
