Why foreigners are taking over from Nigerian craftsmen – NASENI DG
The Executive Vice Chairman of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Prof. Mohammed Sani Haruna, tells why foreigners are taking over from Nigerian artisans and craftsmen.
What does the continuous training of artisans and craftsmen and women signifies for the growth of science and technology in Nigeria?
The significance of giving skilled training for craftsmen and women in various professions for them to be self-employed and even become employers of labour is very relevant and important to the mandate of NASENI.
The activities and what they have learnt if put into practice would guarantee not only employment but availability of home-made products.
There is no nation that discourages crafts and production from households to shops. This little technology and personal efforts are actually the need inputs to the industries. Those that learnt knitting for example, their products can serve as feeders to some textile industries. They can do some fine designs with hand like the graduating gown we wear, which a large manufacturing firm may not have time for.
There are areas of collaboration between Nasarawa State and NASENI through MoU. Which areas did the agreement cover?
What Nasarawa State Governor said was that there has been a MoU between NASENI and the state government since 2011 even before I was made the DG. This MoU is to guarantee youth empowerment, teaching them handcrafts, teaching them plumbing, woodworks in collaboration with relevant technology and skill acquisition centres.
This collaboration is to ensure that there are craftsmen and technicians doing some household items and products in the market to meet their immediate needs and that of the communities which will lead to micro, small and medium scale enterprises. This is the collaboration the governor is promising to enhance.
For example some hospitals in Nasarawa have their portions of their wards being supplied with power from our solar system produced in Karshi.
We don’t just install the solar system for them. We used the indigenes to do the installation and to be responsible for its maintenance and further installation elsewhere. Even the relevant technology, the resource person teaching them various professions received training from NASENI in the form of teaching the trainers.
How can other states collaborate with NASENI to enhance grassroots technical developments?
There were other states that approached NASENI. There were Kebbi, Jigawa, Gombe, Bauchi states of recent. The implementation of the MoU is in different stages. Some already have staff and unemployed youths in the system. Also are our centres in Enugu, Awka and Kano among others. These collaborations are at various levels and there are different achievements in this aspect.
There are many tenants discovered by NASENI and also trained skilled technologists and artisans, we don’t seem to hear about them afterwards, is there no follow up on their progresses?
Those that have received these skilled trainings are at various stages of their successes. What we discovered recently is that we have to incorporate entrepreneurship skills. The fact that somebody knows the technical works does not mean he or she has the skill to successfully manage the businesses. Now we are incorporating entrepreneurship skill in those that we already trained.
Some have abandoned the path of the training they had, some have gone for the so-called greener pastures. But those that are still on the system, some further trainings, they additional capitals and the most important is that they need entrepreneurial skills to grow beyond their levels now.
You said experts and craftsmen from other countries like Togo and Ghana are taking over the job in Nigeria due to lack of skilled manpower. How do you think this can be arrested?
We need to recognize the crucial roles of technical schools that are no longer flourishing and phased out in some states. No advanced nation has ever scrapped theirs. They are the basis and foundation of their technological advancements of industrial advancement. We need craftsmen trained through this form of technical education, like technical schools, as the foundation, they are followed by technicians and technologists that are trained at the monotechnics and polytechnics. They are important and should not be phased out. They are followed by the engineers that go to universities. At the peak of the ladder are those that received advanced degrees.
The craftsmen are the ones that know what to do; the technologists and technicians know how to do and supervising the craftsmen. The engineers know why you have to do it, they provide the design of what is to be done. Those I refer to as the game-changers are the ones that do the thinking they lived in virtual world as their thinking is not of today alone but also of the future. What they think is what the engineers design before it becomes reality after the other components inputs. No one can phase out any of them, they are all important.