The Federal Institute of Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO) has reiterated its commitment to promoting small businesses and reducing unemployment in Nigeria.
Director General/CEO of FIIRO, Prof. Gloria Elemo, stated this at the opening ceremony of a three-day training workshop on ‘Fish Smoking Technology’ held recently in Lagos. She noted that in view of the great potential and abundant human/natural resources available in Nigeria, unemployment should have no room in the country.
Elemo said that the institute would soon start implementing its various job creating strategies in collaboration with 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, the 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 (SMEs) that will grow there from.
“This 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.
In his remark, Coordinator of Ikorodu Fish Farmer, Bolaji Daniel, commended FIIRO, noting that due to the training 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 smoked fish, but without the real knowledge and training,” Daniel said.