FG pledges Support to human resources to other countries

Director General of the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps, Dr Yusuf Buba Yakub, and the returnees volunteers. Photo: Hamza Alkali/Radio Nigeria

The Director General of the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps, Dr Yusuf Buba Yakub says Nigeria will continue to draw from its pool of abundant human resources to assist the development of African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries and their people.

He stated this in Abuja at a reception to welcome Volunteers of the Technical Aid Corps Scheme, who completed their two-year service in Uganda and The Gambia.

Dr Yusuf Buba Yakub said one of the primary benefits of the Scheme was to share knowledge and experience the Volunteers bring from the countries they have served with other Nigerians.

While commending the 14 returnees Volunteers on behalf of the Federal Government for making Nigerians proud by pursuing part of the delivery of the Foreign Policy Objectives of the Tinubu Administration, Dr Buba said Nigeria has been providing technical assistance to African Caribbean and Pacific countries in the last 37 years.

“The United Kingdom has UK Aid;the United States also has USAID and China ,China Aid.In Nigeria here,we have the Nigerian Technical Aid. Each of the above has been used to aid the development of humanity in one area of life or another.For us,the Technical Aid Corps has been used to further South-South cooperation in almost the last forty years in over forty countries and counting.

In the past few weeks, we have continued to make deployments to different countries of the ACP States.In the weeks ahead,we will deploy to more of these countries.These ones who have returned have made the President and all Nigerians proud as we continuously see and hear of their achievements in the places they have served.

A few weeks ago,we had cause to visit the Caribbean.In all our interactions with officials of Government in places like Jamaica,Belize,Guyana, Barbados and the like,the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps is highly sought after and has continued to wax so strong that we have highly-placed officials of Government who have participated in the Scheme.Who knows,we could have a President tomorrow in any of these recipient countries who had also been tutored by TAC Volunteers.

Earlier, the representative of the Team Leader of the batch of Volunteers from Uganda, Prof. Airat Sulaiman, a Development Psychologist, who served at the Islamic University in Uganda, thanked the Federal Government for the opportunity to take part in the Scheme and commended the Nigerian Technical Aid Corps for performing beyond expectations in their provision of welfare and other timely logistics to their Volunteers. She also revealed that some of the Volunteers had been given employment in the Institutions they had served.

Others, who also spoke among the Volunteers, are Dr.Chinwe Peace Igiri, a Software Engineer, and Dr Terseer Ako of the University of Jos, who said the experience was worthwhile and that wherever they had served in the host countries had requested for them to be retained without first returning to Nigeria, against the terms of the TAC Scheme.

Out of the 14 Volunteers who had been awarded the Certificate of Participation in the TAC Scheme,13 returned from Uganda while only one had returned from The Gambia.