The Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, has supervised Signing Ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UTEL Ltd, with the aim to connect Nigerians to foreign jobs in Kuwait, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Scandinavian countries, among others.

The MoU signing ceremony at the instance of the minister with ambassadors and other representatives of other countries, which will be executed by the National Talent Export Programme (NATEP), took place Tuesday in Abuja.

Dr. Uzoka-Anite said the programme is aimed at providing quality jobs for Nigerians while also promoting legal migration.

She said, “The signing of the MoU marks another milestone in our efforts to ensure that Nigerians have access to quality employment opportunities. These employment opportunities could be direct employment and emigration of our talent or utilisation of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) model for gainful and meaningful employment for those based in Nigeria.

“Through NATEP, Nigeria can honourably export her talents in a mutually beneficial and reputation preserving way, putting an end to illegal migration and the embarrassment therefrom other countries”.

The MoU was signed with UTEL Ltd, a Nigerian subsidiary of Unique Agency Kuwait – a leading provider of expatriate employees for the government agencies and departments in the State of Kuwait.

“The partnership with UTEL is to aggregate foreign jobs for Nigerians from Kuwait and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. This is in line with the Federal Government’s aim to forge mutually beneficial partnerships with nations and global institutions to facilitate the provision of jobs for Nigerians, she said.

The ceremony also witnessed an announcement of about two hundred and fifty (250) foreign jobs openings for qualified Nigerians.

The programme intends to provide viable jobs to qualified Nigerians in diaspora who are known to rise like cream to the top of their professions, validated by data. For example, research from the Migration Policy Institute Washington-DC, indicates that more than half of Nigerian immigrants (54%) are likely to occupy management positions, compared to 32% of other immigrants and 39% of the US-born population.

Similarly, the 2021 Office for National Statistic Report from the United Kingdom (UK) showed that 44% of adult residents born outside the UK have some form of qualification, compared to 31% of UK-born residents, while 66% Nigeria immigrants have received one form of qualification or another. It goes to show the level of quality that Nigerians can bring to the table.

NATEP was launched on the sidelines of the 2023 edition of the United Nations General Assembly to connect Nigerians to employment opportunities outside the country through 2 channels, namely physical talent export and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

Recall that the programme estimates that jobs generated through this partnership have the potential to annually attract up to $1.2 billion into the Nigerian economy through remuneration to the employed persons, in addition to about $60million dollars that it could provide to develop the BPO ecosystem, through direct support to the individual BPOs.