FIIRO restates commitment to employment generation, SMEs

The Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) says it is committed to eradicating unemployment and promoting small businesses  in Nigeria.

Stating this at the opening ceremony of a three-day training workshop on ‘Fish Smoking Technology’ held recently in Lagos, Gloria Elemo, director general of FIIRO, noted that unemployment should have no room in Nigeria considering the great potential and the abundant human/natural resources available in the country.

Elemo disclosed that the institute would soon start implementing its various job creating strategies in collaboration with some other agencies aimed at reducing unemployment to the barest minimum in the country.

“One of such programmes is the National Techno-entrepreneurship Development Initiative, an initiative designed by FIIRO with the support of the federal government of Nigeria,” she stated.

According to her, this initiative has the capacity to train two million unemployed youths and women annually at full implementation, in addition to various numbers of small and medium enterprises that will grow there from.

“Today’s training workshop could be conceived as one of the immediate intervention programmes of the federal government to reduce unemployment through empowerment of youths and women who in turn would graduate to become job providers rather than job seekers,” Elemo said.

Commending FIIRO, Bolaji Daniel, coordinator of the Ikorodu Fish Farmer, stated that by being trained by FIIRO, the international market would no longer reject dried fish from Nigeria.

 “This training will help us to do the right thing in terms of moisture content, nutrition composition, and all the processes of cleaning up which we never knew. A lot of people sell smoke fish, but without the real knowledge and training,” Daniel said.

ODINAKA ANUDU