NASENI empowers 100 Nasarawa youths in POP production, others
Executive Vice Chairman, National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Prof. Mohammed Haruna (right); District Head of Gora, Alhaji Jafaru Adamu and a beneficiary of NASENI skill acquisition training, Usman Rija with other dignitaries during the Youth Empowerment on Modern Methods of Casting Plaster of Paris (POP) and its Application at CSS Global Integrated Farms, Gora, Nasarawa State…yesterday.
The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has moved to Nasarawa State to train 100 youths in the production of Plaster of Paris (POP) and installation.
The training programme was the first phase of NASENI’s North Central regional skill development, as part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to ensure that youths are trained in various trades.
Declaring the training open, yesterday, in Nasarawa, the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of NASENI, Prof. Mohammed Haruna, said: “The skill development training and youth empowerment programme by the agency across the country are aimed at introducing modern and technological ways of carrying out existing trades by the people at the grassroots. It was also targeted at developing the needed critical competent workforce for industrialisation of the country, a charge that had been given to NASENI by President Buhari.”
Haruna added that the training and re-training were to make practitioners more efficient and to enhance the prospects of earning a living from their chosen vocation.
The agency, he explained, always carried out its feasibility studies on vocations in all the geo-political zones of the country to know what the youth in each zone were already making a living from and to re-train them on using modern equipment to strengthen their skills and make room for job creation and self-reliance.
Haruna said: “We are in the nation’s home of solid minerals, Nasarawa, the North Central zone, to train 100 selected youths from the zone on the Modern Method of Casting POP and application. The POP is basically dehydrated gypsum, or calcium sulphate, available in powdered form.”
When the dry powder is mixed with water, it rehydrates and sets in the shape of the mould into hard gypsum again.” Haruna thanked Buhari for empowering NASENI to lead Nigeria to a manufacturing economy and undoubtedly skill development, which is key pre-requisite in the development of a competent workforce for Nigeria.
Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa, who was a special guest at the occasion, said if the use of POP were in high demand in the state and beyond, then the prospect of wealth creation and bringing job satisfaction to those involved in this area of vocation are also high.
Prof. Umar Gurku represented him at the event. Chairman of occasion, Sen. Solomon Ewuga, who was FCT Minister, commended Buhari for the programme of empowering the people at the grassroots.
He said: “It was only a caring government that could come down to empower the people at the grassroots, traders and people with vocations.”He urged the trainees to take the new knowledge very seriously and to resume their determination to succeed, especially as they received high-level attention by the Federal Government.
