By Dada Ahmed in lokoja
A 23-year-old, Lokoja-based shoe designer,Mark Aduku, has urged unskilled graduates to acquire practical skills that would make them beat uneployment in Nigeria.
He gave the advice in an interview with the correspondent of The Reporters, an online publication in lokLok on Monday.
The entrepreneur, who holds GCE ordinary level certificate, argued that while acquiring education remained relevant in any society, the frightening statistics of unemployment in the country had pointed to the fact that, graduates, especially those liberal education needed to go extra mile to acquire skills for self reliance.
He said:” While not jettison the idea of furthering my education in the nearest future, I went to Aba to learn how to design various kinds of shoes to start earning living before I realise my educational ambition.
” With this skill I acquire, I have removed myself from uneployment market and in a better vantage to feed myself, take car of the younger ones in my family and contribute my qouta to the social and economic development of my country.
“On a favourable day, I make about N5,000 from the sale of my products and I am also training the young ones, including my direct brother, on how to design shoes and indirectly instilling in them the culture of self reliance.
“I want to advise my fellow youths, especially graduates of higher institutions roaming the streets looking for scarce white-collar job to learn practical skills to be self employed and inturn, be employers of labour.”
Aduku, who said that he tried various loan schemes without success, called on the government to assist youths with practical skills with soft loans to enable thrt start business and grow to reduce crime in the country.
According to him, some youths indulge in crime because, even when they acquire practical knowledge, they have no capital to set up their businesses and make a living, hence, their minds become devil’s workshop.
