The federal government has announce it plan to build a portal to engage, reengineer, and reactivate the capacity of older people who want to continue providing services after retirement.
According to The News Agency of Nigeria, this was disclosed by the Director General of National Senior Citizens Centre, Dr Emem Omokaro, on Wednesday in Abuja.
The goal of the meeting, dubbed the “NSCC Continuous Engagement Bureau Programme,” was to lay the groundwork for synergy between the center and its key partners.
Omokaro explained that the decision to intervene was made after realizing the great potential in the nation’s elderly population.
“The aim of the collaboration is also to assist the centre to create an online portal that would engage older persons who are professionals in their different field of endeavour to tap in their wealth of experiences.
“This is a gathering of service level collaborators on continuing engagement bureau projects, continuing engagement means that we are disrupting retirements. We are creating platforms and tools, we are creating spaces for older persons who wish to continue to engage and have the opportunities to do so.
“You know, older persons have a right to contribute in any area they so wish and they also have a right to access the labour market after retirement not necessarily that they are to be employed by the government. We believe that older persons have a lot of talent and potential, they have expertise and skills so we can incubate their experiences.
“We have built our portal because we need all the data that we need to have, whether you retired from the federal civil service, states or local governments level. We are creating these platforms, and we are also identifying agencies that we need at this service level.
“So, in essence the programme is really mobilising our older people because we want to show the wealth that Nigeria has and our approach is we are positioning NSCC to create wealth,” she said.
The director-general also revealed that the portal would be operational latest by April.
