Manufacturing of ICT Products Begins in Osun, Set to Employ Thousands of Youth

A manufacturing company specialising in information and communications technology (ICT) products, which is capable of generating about 20,000 jobs for youths, has started operations in Osun state.
Speaking at the company’s corporate office in Osogbo, the national sales manager, Alex Oyebamiji, disclosed that the firm, which started about 12 years ago to help promote entrepreneurship development through applied ICT, got to Nigeria about two years ago.
He said the firm has decided to partner Osun state government with the aim of manufacturing ICT products like phones, laptops and computer tablets.
Oyebamiji also disclosed that the factory for the company, which is located in Ilesa, has reached 85 per cent completion, and this makes it to be the first ICT company to build a factory of its own in that part of Nigeria.
On the choice of Osun state, he said the state has a divine economic policy and “everyone is aware that ICT facilitates global business. Economically, the state has been very vibrant. There is high response to ICT appreciation. The people have been responding to the quest for scholarship after winning our proposed raffle draw.”
He added, “Our intention is to empower youth after training. We would start by engaging five hundred youths immediately after completing the factory. Later over one thousand youth would be employed to work in the factory.
“Other segment of workers will be determined by the product range as the products and prices are segmented into low, middle and high class, in accordance with the distributorship or dealership and retailer-ship levels”.
He further stated that accessibility to the Lagos-Abuja Express road, electricity and manpower accounted for the decision of the company to site its company at Ilesa.
As part of the activities of the company in the past, Oyebamiji said by May this year, about 5,000 youths graduated from the company’s training session. He added that 100 out of them have been picked and trained for technical work at their factory in Ghana. They were trained on how to assemble and repair phones, laptops, computer tablets and all other ICT facilities.
Also, as corporate citizen’s responsibility, the company has donated sixteen buses with its logo on them offering free ride to the people in Ilesa, Ila, Ede, while ten out of these buses are plying Osogbo metropolis.
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