SDGs; Driving Nigeria Towards Gainful Engagements Amid Daunting Challenges
The Sustainable Development Goals SDGs that was transmuted from the Millennium Development Goals MDGs soon after the 70th UN General Assembly meeting in 2015, seven years down the line and after six years of purposeful leadership convention domesticated in Nigeria, under the management of a foremost politician, technocrat and bureaucrat, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the program, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire had prioritized the fight to reduce poverty, idleness, unemployment, sufferings of Nigeria in accord with sub-national, federal lawmakers geared towards providing meaningful engagements to Nigerians across all strata.
SDGs; Working The Talk To Resolve Goals 3, 4, Towards A Virile Society.
In line with Goal I, 2 of SDGs and 17 goals of the global program, the idea of fighting poverty in all ramifications and forms was the concerted efforts of provision of useful engagements to Nigerians to address not only acute poverty, lack and wants, but social problems through bringing an end to hunger, with the provision of necessities of life, achieve food security, through the promotion of sustainable agriculture towards guaranteeing social and economic security.
These two cardinal goals was on the road towards the success of Goal 3, and 4, therefore with the glaring interrelationship between the first four goals, domesticated in Nigeria both at the national and sub-national level will be the cynosure of the development and advancement of Nigerians in the present dispensation.
In line with the UN General Assembly declaration, SDGs in Nigeria had not rested on its oars by its leadership to ensure compliance with the global goals, but also with the demands of ordinary Nigerians towards social security across the country.
No nation will tend to achieve these goals in an atmosphere of glaring impossibilities and government inactions against the background of global templates and interventions.
SDGs in Nigeria through interventions in the last six years had also mobilised sub-national, and federal lawmakers through the National Assembly that put Goal I, 2 on a first line charge through the establishment of skill acquisition/ development, capacity building and development centres across the country, construction of Entrepreneurship centres across the six geopolitical zones in the country, encouraging the Federal lawmakers not only to train, retrain their constituents on skill development but transfer knowledge through the institutionalization of the programs.
The sic mega entrepreneurial development and training centres had institutionalized skill development and capacity building in Nigeria far from ordinary political and quasi-government arrangements.
To ensure its domestication in Nigeria, SDGs did not only serve as a vehicle for skill advancement but also commence a program of engagements of fresh graduates in skill and entrepreneurial development, as it provided the NYSC camp in Ogun state with state-of-the-art skill development and capacity building and expected to go round other camps across the country.
To achieve the 2015 declaration and its drive towards the decade of action of the 2020-2030 agenda for an economically stable future, sustainable social inclusiveness, environmental resilient by SDGs 17 goals, I69 targets and 230 performance indicators, the program in Nigeria redirected its energy with concerted efforts that aligned it’s statistical data/system by NBS to enable it to track and monitor its activities, as well as access stakeholders inputs with the assistance of the software and technical know-how devoid of manual assessment.
To bring an end to poverty, safeguard our planet, ensured peace and security and address other artificial and natural phenomena like the world-ravaged pandemic of COVID, Endsars in 2019, and 2020 that occasioned not only social problems but job losses of about 33%, grew unemployment rates to 33M according to NBS.
In anticipation of any unforeseen circumstances, SDGs had provided across the country 1,150 skill acquisition centres through interventions, in addition to those established at the sub-national level, and continuous interventions by federal and state lawmakers with SDGs supervising some of the ones provided by the National Assembly.
The provision of the skill acquisition and empowerment centres had trained many Nigerians including some graduates to complement their professional calling in all areas.
Since skill development, entrepreneurial training and capacity building had become a global target given the dearth of white-collar jobs, fresh graduates in Nigeria had benefited a lot using the provision of the equipment by SDGs, the sub-national level and those provided by federal lawmakers under the guide of the global agency, SDGs.
The Voluntary National Review VNR 2020, Nigeria’s National Development 2021-2025, it had provided aside the six geopolitical, and across the country influenced capacity building and skill acquisition centres in all the Federal constituencies in Nigeria and 109 senatorial districts, that had trained millions of Nigerians in different entrepreneurs and skills, as well as provision of starter parks and take off grants to macro, micro and MSMEs training.
This had brought about meaningful engagements to Nigerians and brought relative stability to Goals 3, and 4, as the program cannot operate in isolation without the necessities of life.
The success story of independent evaluation reports presented by SDGs in Nigeria recently was a fallout of adequate provision and attention for Goal I, 2 domesticated across the country.
Not done with the series of achievements, SDGs recently launched a mega skill development and capacity building centre in Osun State and lately in Bayelsa State, as this was geared towards further promoting skill development in Nigeria in line with SDGs and ITF template to explore the skill areas of many Nigerians.
The ongoing execution of 2022 capital projects by SDGs by federal lawmakers in the National Assembly, at the global SDGs and the sub-national level, will further encourage many Nigerians from relying more on white collar jobs, but continue to explore skill and entrepreneurial development as a new norm in the developed and developing worlds.
SDGs in Nigeria under the leadership of Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, SSA, to the President the program is determined to drive the program to its logical conclusion, by the UN General Assembly declaration and goals.
ABUBAKAR YUSUF Wrote from Abuja, All inquiries to yus.abubakar3@gmail.com.
