Day First Lady commissioned ICT hub at Oko Polytechnic

By Chuks Okoye

Recently, the Oko community, particularly the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, (OkoPoly), Anambra State, was agog with dignitaries, including the academics, captains of industries, politicians, businessmen and women, as well as students and Oko residents as the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, visited the polytechnic. Senator Tinubu was at the Polytechnic to inaugurate an ICT Experience Centre. The Anambra State Governor, Prof Chukwuma Soludo and his wife, as well as 16 other governors’ wives accompanied Mrs Tinubu to the event.

Inaugurating the Centre, she said it was a major investment in the digital future of Nigerian youths, stressing that such facilities were essential to equipping young Nigerians with the competencies required to participate meaningfully in a rapidly changing global economy.

According to the first Lady, the project also fits squarely into the mandate of a technical institution such as Federal Polytechnic Oko, where practical knowledge and industry-relevant skills are central to the educational mission.

With the successful inauguration of the N1 billion Centre, OkoPoly joined the league of other institutions across the globe, which have embraced information and communication technology (ICT), as a basic tool that drives economic growth, national competitiveness and social transformation.

According to the Rector of the institution, Dr Chioma Awuzie, the future belongs to those institutions that can equip their students and young people with the skills to create, innovate and compete globally.

“And that is why the Federal Polytechnic Oko is positioning itself to be at the forefront of Nigeria’s digital transformation agenda,” she added.

She noted that as the rector, she has placed digital transformation, innovation, skills development and technology-driven enterprise within the institution’s strategic direction by increasingly moving the traditional classroom towards a productive and active environment.

She argued that the polytechnic of the future must go beyond awarding certificates to preparing students to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

She said her leadership has embraced strategic interventions and partnerships capable of transforming the polytechnic into a dynamic ecosystem, where technology meets education, skills meet opportunity, innovation meets enterprise and ideas are transformed into impact.

“One of the most significant manifestations of this vision is the polytechnic’s emergence as the South-East hub of the ICT Experience Centre under the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Initiative, sponsored by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), recently commissioned by Her Excellency, Sen. Remi Tinubu in Anambra,” she stated.

In his remarks, the Chairman of the TETFund Board of Trustees, Aminu Bello Masari, disclosed that OkoPoly was one of the six institutions selected nationwide as pioneer beneficiaries of the project. He explained that the centres were approved under TETFund’s 2024 intervention activities and implemented across the six geopolitical zones at a total cost of N1 billion per zone.

He said the intervention recognises the increasing importance of technology to education and national development while supporting programmes under the Renewed Hope Initiative, describing the centre as an enduring platform for translating the First Lady’s vision for youth empowerment into tangible opportunities.

Also in his remarks, TETFund Executive Secretary, Sonny Echono said that the project represents an investment in human capital and the future of Nigerian youths. He said it was consistent with TETFund’s commitment to developing Nigeria’s human capital and promoting a knowledge-driven economy.

Echono thanked President Bola Tinubu for providing a policy environment conducive to people-centred interventions and commended the First Lady for her commitment to women empowerment and youth development.

In her address, Dr Awuzie also described the project as a landmark achievement for the institution, adding that it would provide students and lecturers with practical exposure to Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, robotics, software development and other emerging technologies.

She said the N1 billion Centre represents a practical expression of the First Lady’s vision that young people must be given tools, opportunities and an enabling environment to discover their talents, acquire relevant skills and become productive contributors to national development.

She expressed gratitude to TETFund for its continued intervention at the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, and further appealed to the First Lady and other stakeholders for urgent intervention to address challenges confronting the polytechnic, particularly the threatening erosion in parts of its environment, support towards provision of adequate perimeter fencing for the three campuses and rehabilitation of internal road network in the institution.

She said the Centre is majorly powered by solar system to ensure regular power supply. She also said the Polytechnic would partner professional ICT consultants for sustainability of the project, hoping that it would impact more on the entire South Eastern youths

Also inaugurated were an ultra-modern chemical engineering department and a digital examination centre for students, among others.

For OkoPoly, the event was also an opportunity to showcase the developmental strides of Awuzie’s administration such as the completion of TETFund sponsored building, completion and furnishing of skills acquisition centre, revival of the Polytechnic’s water factory and bakery, among others. She has also taken issues of staff and students’ welfare, discipline, academic reinvention and programme development, anti-cultism, financial transparency, infrastructure and stronger stakeholder relationships to another level since assumption of duty about two years ago.

The highlights of the event included conferring an award of performance on the Rector by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE).

Okoye wrote in from Lagos.

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