Imo Govt commends NDIC over ‘Financial Literacy Day’ campaign to students, others

The Imo State Government has commended the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) for its role in taking the “Financial Literacy Day” campaign to secondary school students nationwide, especially the secondary schools in the state.

Bernard Thompson Ikegwuoha, the Imo State commissioner for Secondary and Primary Education, who was represented by Okereke Livinus, a reverend, and staff of the ministry, during the NDIC Financial Literacy Day, held at the Government Secondary School, Owerri, with the theme, ‘Smart Money Talks,’ expressed satisfaction, especially the NDIC programme of reaching out to the students to teach them the knowledge of financial management nationwide.

According to him, “the NDIC comes in to save, to protect depositors and other financial institutions from loss”, and that the role puts the trust of Nigerians in the Nigerian banking sector.

“What NDIC is doing is to teach our young minds, to catch them young, so that they will know what is called financial management. But you cannot manage your finance well when you do not earn it, and you don’t work.

“They are in our schools to input to us the attitude of hard work, that mind of earning your own income, and how to grow your money by way of savings and investments,” he said.

Okereke however, decried the attitude amongst the students to consume all that has been earned or given to them immediately without savings. And while stressing on hard work, and imbibing the attitude of savings and consuming less, he said: “The money you earned is sweeter than the money dashed to you by others.”

He advised the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation to take the knowledge of financial literacy campaigns to the senior primarily students, and to include the students in the rural areas in Imo State in the “Financial Literacy Day” campaign.

In his remarks, Chris Uzoigwe, the principal of Government Secondary School, Owerri, where the event was held, expressed satisfaction on the number of schools and students, including the students of Government Secondary School, Owerri, who came to acquire the knowledge of financial literacy, according to himself, “that means that NDIC wants this knowledge to spread out”.

And based on that “I want everybody to listen and listen attentively, because they came to teach us how to manage our finances, the way we manage our finances to grow, and by this, it could be possible to achieve a lot.

“Again, to teach us how we should be prudent in using our money, and by doing so, we can invest wisely. I hope and expect that everybody that is here will listen attentively,” he said.

He further commended NDIC for bringing the knowledge to the students.

“Please, while teaching the students, I want you to put it in a way that they will understand so that they will appreciate it”.

He informed them of some of the reasons why the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Finance established the NDIC, adding that “they have come to “teach us how to earn money, and be prudent in using our money and using it wisely.”

Meanwhile, Onwuegbuakuko Paul Chinonso, a student of Brainy Polymaths International School and others expressed their happiness over what they learned, saying, “we are going to practise them and teach others too”.