By Abdullahi Muhammed, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has ratified Nigeria’s membership of African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buahri.
The minister said with Wednesday’s ratification, Nigeria has been able to beat December 5 deadline set for all countries to ratify their membership of the Afrian free trade zone.
“The Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment presented a memo today asking the Federal Executive Council to ratify Nigeria’s membership of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA).“On the 7th of July, 2019, Nigeria signed the AfCFTA agreement in Niamey during the 12th Extraordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU). The effective date ought to have been July 2020. But as a result of the pandemic, it was postponed to the 1st of January 2021. And all member-states were given up to the 5th of December to ratify the agreement.
“That is precisely what Nigeria did today. The Federal Executive Council approved the ratification of the membership of the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement. It was ratified and as such, we beat the deadline of the 5th of December. Effectively, we hope that by 1st of January 2021, the agreement will come into force,” he said.
Also speaking, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Ali Pantami, said the council approved the opening of a Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre in Abuja.He said the centre would help address the problem of unemployment among Nigerian youths.“I presented two memos. Number one is on the National Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre here in Abuja and this is part of the efforts of the federal government of Nigeria in producing many entrepreneurs, particularly looking at the challenge of unemployment and unemployable citizens.
“We came up with this plan to establish a digital innovation and entrepreneurship centre where millions of our citizens are going to be trained as entrepreneurs, particularly in ICT, so that they will be future potential employers rather than being employees.
“This is, somehow, in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they have a programme they call Regional Entrepreneurship Accelerated Programme (REAP), where they support a country or an institution to produce many entrepreneurs in the area of their choice.
“So, our focus, looking at our mandate in the ministry, is on the development of ICT and this centre is going to be managed by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), while the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy is going to provide the policy direction for the centre and to supervise the implementation of the policy. It is going to be completed in three years,” he said.
The minister said the council also approved registration of internally displaced persons to give them digital identity.
“The second memo is in relations with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC). As we all know that NIMC Act 2007 has made it mandatory that each citizen must require a National Identity Number, according to the Act’s section 5, and section 27 emphasises that it could be an offence not to acquire the number.
“Most of us here do not have the number, but they have at least a form of identification, an official one; either driver’s license, passport for travelling and many more, but people in IDP camps do not have that usually, so we come up with a policy that will prioritise providing national identity to people living in IDPs. The policy has been entitled as National Policy for Digital Identification for Internally Displaced Persons.
“This digital ID will support government in knowing the total number of our IDPs, budgetary provision on how to take care of them, national planning with regards to their education, health and many more. When it comes to social intervention being provided by the federal government, through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, government will have an up-to-date record of IDPs; their number, their location and everything and government will reach out to them easily through that database that is going to be domiciled at the National Identity Management Commission.
“Based on the report during the formulation of the policy, we have around three million people living in IDP camps in Nigeria, which is more than one percent of our population. In addition, from the records that we have received in the course of the formulation, there is no single state in the country without IDPs; the highest is in Borno State with 1.4 million and the lowest is Ondo State with 1,024 persons,” he said.