Buhari’s agenda on job creation yielding results –ITF boss

Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan

President Muhammadu Buhari’s agenda on job creation and addressing specific skills gap in order to boost employment in Nigeria have started yielding positive results, as more than 300,000 Nigerians were trained and empowered with start-up packs in 2018.

Director General of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Sir Joseph Ari, disclosed this at a press briefing/retainership exploratory interface with journalists in Oyo and Osun states, held at His Grace Hotel, Bodija, Ibadan yesterday.

He spoke against the backdrop of a recent Skills Gap Assessment in six priority sectors of the Nigerian economy, which was conducted by ITF in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) that revealed that 925 trades were difficult and hard to fill in the country’s labour market, in areas of housing and petrochemical sectors, auto industry, textiles, steel, leather industry, among others.

Ari stated that the beneficiaries were trained under various intervention programmes initiated in the ITF Reviewed Vision 2016-2022, and most of the “beneficiaries are today in paid employment or are successful entrepreneurs.” The interventions, according to him, include National Industrial Skills Development Programme (NISDP), Women Skills Empowerment Programme (WOSEP), Passion to Profession Programme (P2PP) or Training Wheels, Construction Skills Empowerment Programme (CONSEP), Skills Training and Empowerment Programme for Physically Challenged (STEPP-C), and Agri-Preneurship, adding that at least 600 natives of Oyo and Osun states have so far been trained under NISDP, WOSEP and STEPP-C.

The ITF boss who was represented by the Deputy Director/Area Manager, ITF, Ibadan Area Office, Mrs. Olufunke Olorunleke, promised that, “our commitment to skills acquisition for job creation did not, however, distract us from the performance of our key functions like research and curriculum development, reimbursements, development of key infrastructure and Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES).”