By Japhet Alakam & Ayo Onikoyi
THE Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed  has restated Federal Government’s resolve to transform the Creative Industries to a Creative Economy as a means of providing jobs for the unemployed.

The Minister said this, yesterday in Lagos, during the historic signing of Memorandum Of Understanding, MoU, between the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture and the Tony Elumelu Foundation.

The Minister, who expressed delight in working with the Foundation said: “This is the kind of visionary enterprise we need to fuel sustainable development across the African continent and we are happy to be working with this Foundation. The MoU will spell out the details of how we will work together to execute our partnership.”

It is a delight to know that the Foundation has bent over backwards to accommodate the Creative Industries within the bigger Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme, which has the purpose of identifying, over 10 years, a total of 10,000 African start-ups and entrepreneurs with ideas that can generate at least 1,000,000 new jobs and contribute at least 10 billion dollars in new annual revenues across Africa.

In his remarks, founder of Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr Tony Elumelu, stated that the ceremony was to cement the partnership to change the face of creative industry.

He disclosed that their involvement was as a result of the Minister’s invitation to the private sector to partner with the sector and as he observed the business should not be left alone for the government.