The Federal Government, through the Office of the Vice President, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with six professional bodies to provide free nationwide training for 10 million Nigerians in financial literacy and inclusion.
Vice President Sen. Kashim Shettima, who launched the initiative on Monday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, stated that Nigeria’s demographic dividend can only be realised if its youth and women are equipped with the skills and ethics required for a rapidly evolving digital economy.
The programme will be executed by the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion (PreCEFI), which is chaired by the Vice President. It is designed to equip participants, with a priority on women and youths, with essential financial knowledge, investment skills, and digital competencies for sustainable wealth creation.
The MoU partners—the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), the National Institute of Credit Administration (NICA), the Chartered Risk Management Institute (CRMI), and the Nigeria Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NIIE)—will jointly design training programmes, certification pathways, and mentorship platforms.
Speaking at the ceremony, Sen. Shettima described the MoU as “a strategic national investment in capacity as infrastructure.” He emphasised that financial inclusion relies not only on access but on “competence, trust, and capability.”
“We cannot build a one-trillion-dollar economy on weak skills, fragmented standards, or disconnected professional ecosystems,” he stated.
The Vice President charged PreCEFI and the professional bodies to treat the MoU as “a living platform for execution,” and officially flagged off the training programme on behalf of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In his remarks, the President of ICAN, Mallam Haruna Nma Yahaya, applauded the Tinubu administration’s economic reforms, which he said created the conditions for the initiative. He pledged the full professional support of the institutes involved.
The technical partner for the programme, WAWU Africa, represented by its Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Emmanuel Lennox, assured stakeholders of its readiness to deliver the necessary digital platform.
Dr. Nurudeen Abubakar Zauro, Technical Adviser to the President on Economic and Financial Inclusion, explained the rationale for the initiative: “Exclusion is not only by lack of access, but by limited skills, weak institutional capacity, and insufficient professional support.”
The high point of the event was the formal signing of the MoU between the Federal Government and the six professional bodies.
