A former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Adetokunbo Kayode, SAN, has called for the restructuring of the country’s approach to skills development, stressing that it is the only solution to the escalating youth unemployment crisis.

Kayode emphasised that youths could rely only on academic certificates but stated that for those aspiring to be entrepreneurs and employers of labour, academic credentials are insufficient without complementary, practical skills.

The former Minister of Defence, who stated this while delivering the 36th convocation lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), described as depressing and unacceptable a situation in which 53.4 per cent of youth and graduates in Nigeria are unemployed.

While speaking on the topic, “Strategies and Tactics for Solving Skills Challenges in Nigeria: The Roles of Government, Institutions, and the Youth”, Kayode told 2,727 university graduands of the institution that it is imperative for them to choose and commit to learning at least one new skill.

Kayode advocated for demand-driven reform of educational curricula from primary to tertiary levels and the mainstreaming of technical and vocational education and training, adding that federal and state governments must provide policy leadership, resource allocation, and regulatory oversight.

He said, “I, like all well-meaning Nigerians, desire that young Nigerians acquire relevant, high-quality skills that translate into dignified employment, productive entrepreneurship, and national socio-economic development.
“The economic potential of this large youth population presents a major opportunity for growth if the right investments are made in education, healthcare, and job creation. However, many young people face high rates of unemployment and poverty. Many of us here today are convinced that unemployment is the single most important issue concerning the Nigerian youth.
“A 2022 National Bureau of Statistics report shows that 53.4 per cent of youths in Nigeria, including graduates, are unemployed. These statistics are depressing and unacceptable. So why is this so? The blame for or the cause of these negative statistics is the skills gap.
“The result of a lack of skills and skills mismatch is unemployability. Skills development, therefore, as a solution to unemployment, must be the most critical issue of interest for the Nigerian youth today. But this is not solely a Nigerian problem, but a universal problem.
“Heavily populated countries like India and China also have the same problem. But they are making progress and have successfully skilled up their young populations to tackle unemployability and unemployment. What they did was to properly align skills development with demand-driven growth sectors.
“Every society has its own growth sectors. In Nigeria, we have agriculture, mining, technology, manufacturing, energy, construction, etc. However, there is a persistent mismatch between supply (training programmes) and demand (employers’ needs).
“So, all we need to do is implement a structured set of strategies and tactics that can properly match skills and address the training of Nigerian youth to accommodate the skills requirements in identified areas of sectoral development. That is, properly match skills development with requirements in the identified growth sectors.”