How dearth of skilled artisans hurts industrialisation

•Artisans at a construction site

The global artisan economy is $34 billion. Nigeria has failed to leverage this group in the informal sector to drive industrialisation and create jobs. Instead, the sector, according to experts, is 80 per cent dominated by foreign artisans and craftsmen. The foreigners are said to be repatriating as much as N900 billion from Nigeria annually, leaving many local artisans jobless. However, efforts to empower local artisans and hopefully reverse the trend are on course. Asst Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports.

The National Union of Civil Engineering, Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW) President General, Comrade Amaechi Asugwuni, is literarily up in arms. The labour unionist is livid over the massive loss of jobs by his members to expatriates’ invasion of the local construction industry.

“We now see Indians and Chinese taking the jobs of technicians and artisans that can be done by Nigerians. This should be unacceptable to a country in search of development,” Asugwuni fumed, putting the blame at the Federal Government’s doorstep.

The NUCECFWW helmsman did not mince words, last week, when he accused the Federal Government of failing to halt the abuse of expatriate quota. “Nigeria should be enhancing the development of the country through provision of jobs,” he said, observing that: “Unfortunately, successive governments have been very weak in resisting abuse of expatriate quota and casualisation of workers.”

Asugwuni argued, for instance, that the kind of jobs that the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) should approve should be clearly defined, insisting that people coming into the country as carpenters under the guise of expatriates should no longer be tolerated.

“What is expatriate about carpenters, technicians and iron benders, among other jobs done by so-called expatriates that cannot supervise projects?” the labour leader asked, adding that there are multinational companies owned by Nigerians that also perpetuate practices that dehumanise Nigerian workers.

Asugwuni’s worries are not without justification. For long, Nigerian artisans and craftsmen have been under their foreign counterparts’ shadow, as artisans from India, Japan, China, and neighbouring West African countries, such as Ghana, Togo, Republic of Benin, Chad, and Niger take over jobs meant for Nigerian artisans in construction and other sectors.

The affected local artisans and craftsmen, who remain idle and jobless while foreigners call the shot, include bricklayers, carpenters, steel fabricators, plumbers, electricians, tillers, painters and casters.

Others are tailors, barbers, masons, cobblers and other micro, small and medium-scale service providers. Also included are operators in events management, automobile repairers and car washers, to name but a few.

Former Chairman, Board of Directors, A.G. Leventis (Nig) Plc, Chief Joseph Babatunde Oke, put the foreign dominance of Nigeria’s artisan economy in perspective when he revealed that as much as 80 per cent of artisans working in Nigeria are foreigners, mostly from neighbouring West African countries.

Oke, a mechanical engineer, spoke in Lagos, on the sideline of the public presentation of his autobiography, “A Rose For My Mother.” He expressed worries that various categories of artisans are usually imported from neighbouring West African countries to work in building and related industries since the scrapping of Trade Centres many years ago.

The foreign artisans, he lamented, are into various aspects of the housing, construction and related industries like carpentry, iron bending, tiling, welding, Plaster of Paris (PoP) and bricklaying, among others. He said they took over those areas of trade because the few trained local artisans were aging and new ones have not been trained to replace them.

Dearth of artisans forcing huge capital flight

Oke lamented that the dearth of junior technical manpower and subsequent dominance of foreign artisans has resulted in huge capital flight and also worsened unemployment in the country.

The technocrat, who is also a  member of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), harped on the need to “Bridge this gap in technical manpower.”

The Nation learnt from industry operators and stakeholders that the capital flight foisted on Nigeria by the gap in technical manpower is huge. For instance, the Chairman of Artisans and Craftsmen Training Board, Mr. Musa Mshalgaya, revealed that foreign artisans and craftsmen working in Nigeria repatriate about N900 billion every year.

Mshalgaya, who spoke in Abuja, shortly after his inauguration as chairman, Advisory Board of Construction Skills Training and Empowerment Programme (C-STEmp), attributed the disturbing situation to the fact that Nigerian-trained artisans were aging out and new ones haven’t been trained to replace them. Besides, many Nigerians, he said, feel they have other forms of work outside artisanship and craftsmanship.

Indeed, most artisans are aging out and retiring from their professions, while new entrants are minimal. The older artisans can hardly operate their businesses without the services of apprentices and younger workers. Both the older and younger artisans that would have, perhaps, challenged the dominance of the foreigners are faced with difficult operating environment.

Apart from the difficulty in accessing capital, local artisans are hamstrung by Nigerians’ penchant for foreign goods/services, which manifests in lack of patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods/services. Other challenges that stand in their way include lack of supportive infrastructure, particularly power, insecurity, policy inconsistency, and insincerity amongst artisans.

Job creation, industrialisation suffer

According to experts, the global artisan economy is $34 billion per year industry. But Nigeria has not been able to claim a chunk of this burgeoning informal sector of the global economy to give fresh impetus to her current industrialisation drive.

Despite her competitive advantage in this sector, given her rich cultural traditions, large army of artisans, though mostly unskilled, and unique raw materials, Africa’s largest economy and most populous country has yet to fully exploit the potential of her artisan economy to create jobs and drive industrialisation.

Already, there are fears that technical labour skills may soon disappear completely from the development landscape, with serious negative consequences for economic growth and development, unless urgent and concerted efforts are made to halt the decline.

This is so considering the fact that the artisan sector is believed to be the second largest employer behind agriculture in the developing world including Nigeria. Millions of people—most of them women—participate in the artisan economy, practicing traditional crafts as a means to earn income and sustain their livelihoods.

In fact, experts said developing countries currently account for 65 per cent of handicraft exports around the world. They, however, regretted that Nigeria’s artisan sector still has a long way to go to reach its full potential as a sustainable source of income generation, employment, and economic growth for impoverished communities.

At present, about 20, 000 Nigerian artisans particularly those in the construction industry, are said to be jobless, with many resorting to commercial motorcycle riding, popularly called okada to make ends meet.

Others have also turned to petty trading to make ends meet, while others, for lack of means of livelihood, have taken to armed robbery, kidnapping, advance fee fraud, otherwise called ‘419’ and other vices.

The Association of Building Consultants and Artisans of Nigeria (ABCAN), for instance, confirmed that over 20, 000 of its members across the country are without job. ABCAN took a swipe on home builders and government, accusing them of preferring foreign artisans to indigenous ones.

To drive home their frustration, ABCAN President, Mr. Jimmy Oshinubi, threatened that if government does not stop giving construction jobs to foreign artisans at the detriment of locals, “it will result to xenophobic attack in Nigeria just as it happened in South Africa.”

His threat underscored the need to heed Oke and other experts’ wise counsel on the need to establish a technical college that will provide training opportunities and development of various categories of artisans. Oke said the establishment of a technical college for this purpose was one of the aims of his Foundation.

Public, private sector wade in

To halt the impending disappearance of technical labour skills and services from the informal sector and also unleash its potential to significantly contribute to grassroots empowerment, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and industrialisation, both the public and private sectors have rolled out various empowerment programmes for artisans in the form of training and provision of capital.

For instance, at the last count, 23,400 artisans and traders in 13 states and the Federal Capital Territory are said to have benefited from soft loans disbursed under the Federal Government’s Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), under President Muhammadu Buhari’s Social Investment Programmes (SIPs).

The loans, which ranged from N10, 000 to N100, 000 per applicant, were paid directly to individual artisan or trader, who was expected to belong to a registered association and/or cooperative. The Nation learnt that this was to ensure that the beneficiary was peer-endorsed as credible, and also to facilitate timely repayment.

The micro-credit scheme was a no-interest loan scheme, with only a one-time five per cent administrative fee charged for costs. Broadly, it was targeted at micro-enterprises: traders, artisans, market men and women, entrepreneurs, and farmers with the involvement of cooperatives, and executed through the Bank of Industry (BoI).

As part of its determination to reduce unemployment rate and skill deficiency among artisans, the Governor Akinwumi Ambode led administration in Lagos State has since stepped up efforts at providing the enabling environment for young entrepreneurs, artisans and tradesmen to do business, deliver innovation, and boost the growth of the state’s economy.

The Lagos State Ministry of Wealth Creation and Employment (MWC&E) does this in collaboration with Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board (LASTVEB). It has intensified the campaign to train tradesmen and artisans in the state to enhance their productivity and upgrade their skills.

According to the Permanent Secretary, MWC&E, Mr. Abdul Ahmed Mustapha, the state has contributed N25 billion to an Employment Trust Fund (ETF) to support small scale enterprises. He said the government hopes to encourage start-up businesses and small-scale redevelopment projects by creating incubation centres across the state.

Individuals, corporates join the empowerment fray

Last week, a total of 100 artisans were rewarded with a grant of N300, 000 each to be invested in their businesses, under an empowerment programme tagged “ISEDOWO” for youths from the Southwest.

The 100 beneficiaries were the first batch of youths that will benefit from a N30 million Community Partnership Scheme by Goldberg, produced by Nigerian Breweries Plc.

At the unveiling of the empowerment programme in the palace of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi- Ojaja II, NB Plc’s Marketing Director, Franco Maria Maggi, said ISEDOWO was designed to equip young Yoruba men and women with the support they need to grow their businesses.

He expressed optimism that the gesture would positively transform the lives of its beneficiaries, have spill over effects on the larger economy while also increasing income and creating jobs.

Interested participants were required to showcase their business ideas and how it impacts the society in order to benefit from the empowerment scheme.

More screening and selection process will continue across the seven states in the Southwest after which the brewery giant will select another batch of beneficiary artisans for the largesse.

The thinking is that if current efforts by the private and public sector in empowering artisans are sustained, significant boost will come the way of this informal sector.

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