By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
Can you imagine an individual in primary school and has developed plan B against unemployment? An insight into the story of a young boy, with avowed determination to brake the yoke of unemployment proves the reality of this strange development in the course of this piece.
The imperative of the young ones in Nigeria imbibing the spirit of handwork, almost from the cradle to ensure sustained self reliance during adulthood, coupled with the prevailing elusive whitecoller job job in the country is begining to take root children,even as low as five years in Lokoja, capital of confluence kogi state.
One of such highly conscious children is Master AbdulRazaq Jimba, a seven-year old mechanic apprentice whose story typifies this emerging concept among parents, especially among the poor with no god fathers to help their children secure government job for after toiling to train them through the four walls of educational institutions.
When I took my car to one of the mechanic workshops at Adankolo, a suburb of Lokoja for repair recently, little did I know that I will meet such a young boy who is so proactive in laying solid foundation for his source of livelihood by learning mechanic in addition to pursuing western education.
Shortly after I alerted from my car, a boy popularly known as “small” appeared in front of me with spanner, firmly in his hand with enthusiasm to join his master in the repair of my car after lodging my complaints about the car.
His vested interest in being a mechanic apprentice attracted my interest in having conversation with him and at the end of the dialogue, I was convinced that Jimba knows his onions in his decision.
Jimba, who said he aimed to earn a degree in mechanical engineering, said his decision to start learning mechanic at a tender age before obtaining degree was to ensure that he had plan B against foreeable unemployment in the country after his educational pursuit.
” I lovev to make a career in mechanic, using my hand and brain,it is a clean and good job that pays,”he said.
Astonished as to the wisdom of the boy, I probed further by asking him the names of tools usually used by mechanics,behold, I was not disappointed as Jimba answered my questions eloquently and to my admiration.
Besides telling me his name,his school, that he is in primary two, he did not mince words in his choice of mechanic as a profession he hoped to master and take on as a life long source of livelihood and contribute his qota to the transportation sector of the nation’s economy.
Jimba made to understand that he was not unaware of the high rate unemployment in Nigeria,but determined not to be part of millions of the unemployed youths roaming streets in most parts of Nigeria.
One of his senior colleagues and some his admirers described Jimba as a boy who is serious in learning on the job by concentrating on his apprenticeship and grasping the experience of repairing cars within six months of his journey into the business of apprenticeship.
They further described Jimba as a shining example and a wake up to the young ones idling without any vocation besides educational pursuit but looking up to government for job,to have a change of attitude, by having plan B in order not to be entangled in the cobweb of unemployment, the statistics of which has assumed frightening dimension.
The issue of Jimba also calls to the fore the need for government to have a rethink on the need to revive technical education, particularly at secondary school level, with a view to training those who will be able to use their brain and hand for self actualization, reliance and reduce the unemployment in Nigeria to tolerable level.
The fact remains that not every Nigerian has the intellectual capacity to earn a degree, but with technical training and experience,those who cannot make it to the highest level of educational attainment can be trained in one vocation or the other to earn a living to reduce unemployment, crime and criminality in the country.
