In Nasarawa, Nigeria’s next workforce is being built with skills, not degrees

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, millions of young people enter the labour market each year in search of work. Typically, a university or polytechnic degree was guaranteed as a sure way of getting a job and being successful. However, this has not been the case for many years.

But in Nasarawa state, young people are pursuing a different path in skills acquisition and vocation.

At the Wing Commander Abdullahi Ibrahim Vocational and Technology Institute in Lafia, capital city of Nasarawa, the state government said more than 10,000 people have been trained in nearly 40 trades since 2022.

Drawing students from across Nigeria, the institute is part of a growing effort to equip young people with practical skills as industries grapple with a shortage of certified artisans and many graduates face an increasingly difficult job market.

Speaking when the state hosted a delegation of presidential media aides and journalists on the “Renewed Hope” tour recently, Daniel Ewuga Asele, executive director of the institute, said they are training young people to establish their own enterprise.

“Our curriculum is designed in such a way that we train you, fine-tune your mindset to go and establish your enterprise,” Ewuga said.

“We don’t train people here to carry the certificate and the skills, knocking at the doors and windows of the government, looking for government jobs. We train you with the clear instruction to go and establish your business.

“The short-term training lasts for two months, three months. For example, somebody learning barbing doesn’t need to be kept for three years learning barbing. So barbing lasts for two months.

“Then we have trades like oxyacetylene welding, it lasts for only three months.”

Emphasising the need for a vocational institute, Nasarawa Secretary to the Government Labaran Shuaibu Magaji said there would no longer be a need for Nigeria to import skilled workers because of the institute.

“When he became the Governor, one of the things he thought of was to establish a skilled acquisition center that will certify every laborer that we have in this country,” Magaji said.

Nasarawa officials also conducted the presidential media aides and journalists on a tour of numerous road projects, including the Makurdi-Jos federal highway, Keffi flyover, and the Maraba bridge among other projects.

Ibrahim Addra, chief press secretary (CPS), said the Keffi road project is very important because of the number of road accidents recorded there.

“Keffi is a fast-developing local government because of the number of federal institutions, health institutions, and educational institutions that are here. And so this has lessened the problem like you would hear from people who have been in this place before now,” he said.

“There used to be a very terrible section of the road. So we’re happy with this construction. It is our sincere hope and belief that when this is completed, it will ease all of these crashes in this place. It will open up Keffi for business and it will enhance, of course, the beauty. You cannot take away the aesthetics of a project of this nature in a local government like Keffi.”