Access Bank, Nigerian tier-one lender and the country’s biggest bank by asset and customer base has teamed up with Nigerian Breweries, pioneer and largest brewing company in the country to launch ‘Access The Stars’.
According to both companies, the exercise is geared towards discovering musical talents in Nigeria, a country whose young population is half of the entire 200 million inhabitants.
“Access The Stars is a platform that will take the talents of Nigeria and groom them, and showcase them, not just in Nigeria alone but through the platform, the young talents in the country will become known everywhere in the world,” Jordi Borrut Bel, MD of Nigerian Breweries said at the launch of the initiative in Lagos.
With the highest population in Africa, its greatest asset has come with its big challenge. Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose to a record high of 23.1 percent of the workforce in the third quarter of 2018, up from 18.1percent a year earlier.
“The most important resources of Nigeria are her youths,” Bill Gates, co-founder Bill, and Melinda Foundation said during a visit to Nigeria.
In his remarks, Herbert Wigwe, MD/CEO of Access Bank said: “We are celebrating a very unique partnership between two great institutions, determined, and focused to ensure that we support the youth, the national development and make social impacts and all the things necessary for our economy.”
According to the Access Bank and Nigerian Breweries, the talent hunt initiative is scheduled to commence before the year-end will kick off in cities in South-Western region of the country: Ekiti, Abeokuta, etc.
The ticket to the audition of the Access The Stars includes the purchase of three cane of the Star product and an account holder of the Access Bank’s DiamondXtra account.
On the reason why a bank and brewer teamed up to form such a platform, NB CEO said “if you look at NB, we have a big history of growing young talents-NB has been promoting talents as well as music so as Access Bank. The bank has been doing a lot with their festivals, they are not just promoting music but also Nigerian and African designs.”
According to both brands, there is a serious need for the Nigerian economy to grow and “if there is one thing that the country has, is the talent. The creativity of this country is seen everywhere,” the institutions said at the unveiling of the talent hunt logo.
“By the time we finish this exercise, one of the things we would have done for sure would be to bring out several young talents that you and I don’t yet know about,” Wigwe assured.
