Unemployment: Why we’re prioritising training to address the issue – NDE

From Sola Ojo, Kaduna

After identifying the absence of courses in job creation in Nigerian universities as a major cause of unemployment in the country, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) is now prioritising training to address the issue.

The Director-General of the Directorate, Abubakar Nuhu Fikpo, stated this while addressing members of the Executive Management and State Coordinators of NDE at a capacity building training promised to resist anyone within or outside the directorate that constitutes a stumbling block or attempts to frustrate this goal.

To him, the directorate under his leadership has done creditably well in its aspiration to create jobs for all categories of Nigerians through training and capacity building.

‘It is noteworthy that the path to effective and efficient employment generation, wealth creation and poverty alleviation is strewn with daunting and seemingly insurmountable obstacles which tend to discourage even the most incurable optimists.

‘This is even made more difficult because there is no discipline in our tertiary institutions that has a department or faculty of job creation.

‘Though the NDE has continued to discharge its mandate of generating employment, creating wealth and alleviating poverty, in Nigeria, it is still challenged by the fact that, as a pioneer institution in job generation, without any precedent to follow or copy, its personnel were recruited without sufficient consideration for the specialised nature of the task expected of the NDE.

‘Consequently, the management realised the imperative for training and re-training NDE personnel to acquire the appropriate skılls, knowledge and the right attitude to enhance productivity and efficiency tọ meet the special needs of operations of the directorate as well as the dynamic trend of unemployment.

‘The NDE management will under my watch, therefore, consistently address the issues of training and retraining of the Directorate’s employees within the limitations imposed by the dearth of funds.

‘I will welcome onboard anyone, within and without, the NDE who shares these aspirations and would help us achieve them. I will if need be equally resist anyone who stands as a stumbling block on our way to frustrate our realisation of these lofty goals we have set for ourselves,’ the DG stressed.