By Ahmed Ahmed
The Presidency has commenced registration for the federal government’s free nationwide training of 10 million Nigerians in financial inclusion and literacy, marking a major step in expanding economic participation and skills development.
The registration, hosted by WAWUAfrica through its onboarding portal, was launched by Vice-President Kashim Shettima during a virtual meeting of the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion (PreCEFI) alongside six professional bodies and development partners including the World Bank, African Union (AU) Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).
Represented by the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Affairs, Dr. Tope Kolade Fasua, Vice President Shettima described the initiative as a flagship programme of President Bola Tinubu with both national and global impact.
“The flag-off ceremony for the upskilling initiative will become one of the flagship programmes of President Bola Tinubu in terms of his impact on the Nigerian people and how this can transmogrify into a global impact coming from Nigeria,” he said.
“I commend the widely focused areas of the potential impact to cover digital literacy and information technology, IT literacy, financial literacy, economic literacy, service delivery literacy, healthcare and wellness, creative arts and design, business and entrepreneurship skills, skills trade and engineering skills, hospitality and tourism skills.”
He also commended WAWUAfrica, the World Bank, Alison Women Entrepreneurship, AU, ECOWAS, NITDA, EU and other partners for their collaboration.
“We believe that this programme will continue to expand in terms of partnership and collaboration until we achieve the maximum utility and mileage required,” he added.
Technical Adviser to the President on Economic and Financial Inclusion, Dr. Nurudeen Zauro, emphasised that the training is free and warned Nigerians against fraud.
“The essence here is so that Nigerians can be well guided. First of all, this training is free of charge. We don’t want to have a situation whereby anybody would be requested to make any form of payment, and also to be well guided where you’re going to log in to have your details imputed onto the system for you to successfully get trained,” he said.
The initiative builds on a February 2026 MoU signed by PreCEFI with six professional bodies, ICAN, CIBN, CIS, NICA, CRMI and NIIE, to develop training, certification, digital skills and mentorship platforms.
Targeted at women and youths, the programme is designed to equip Nigerians with financial literacy, investment knowledge and digital competencies for sustainable wealth creation, with stakeholders pledging to ensure the platform operates on trust, transparency and accountability.
