The Industrial Training Fund, ITF, has commenced a skills acquisition programmed for more than one thousand persons in Borno State.

About 600 of the participants in the training exercise are Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, drawn from various camps in Maiduguri, the State capital.

The programme is part of the ongoing skills training by the federal government under the 5th National Industrial Skills Development Programme, NISDP.

Director General of the ITF, Dickson Onuoha, who was present during the flag-off of the training scheme, noted that the programme was aimed at giving the IDPs hope of a fresh beginning, as well as fast-tracking the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan.

“We are here today as a clear manifestation of the Federal Government efforts towards helping the IDPs to get integrated back to the society,” Onuoha said.

“The idea is to give them a means of livelihood while they return home.”

“We will not rest until we provide access to the IDPs on various skills and facilities,” he added.

The ITF DG said that participants in the training would also be taught Entrepreneurship Skills.

“This will enable them to be able to organized themselves into cooperatives and then we can now be able to introduce them to the Bank of Industry which will help them to have access to finance.

“That is how the Federal Government has designed the program, so that the ITF will provide the skills component, SMEDAN (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria) to provide entrepreneurship skills. While the Bank of Industry help in getting fund,” Onuoha explained.

Governor Kashim Shettima commended the ITF for the initiative, but pleaded for training of additional 000 IDPs.

Shettima, who was represented by the Head of Service, Yakub Bukar, expressed optimism that the many empowerment trainings going on in various IDP camps in the state would result in poverty reduction among the citizens whose life has been devastated by the Boko Haram insurgency.