The news about foreigners taking over the jobs of artisans particularly in the built environment and construction industry is nonetheless, worrisome to professionals in the sector. About N900 billion, they said, is lost annually to these foreigners. Accusing fingers are being pointed at prominent Nigerians and the government for connivance. But the trend may soon change with the training and retraining of artisans who would be fit to take their rightful place in that sector, writes SEYI ODEWALE.
About N900 billion is lost annually to foreign artisans, who have displaced indigenous ones in the construction industry and the built environment, professionals in the sector have said. To them, the development is worrisome and the tide should urgently be stemmed.
But the reason for this, according to some multi-national civil and building engineering firms, is lack of the requisite competence on the part of the indigenous artisans. But the professionals while frowning at the alleged ‘invasion’ of foreign artisans said the youths are equally shunning artisanship.
This perceived apathy was corroborated recently in Lagos by the President, Building Collapse Protection Guild (BCPG), Mr Kunle Awobodu, a professional builder. According to him, the construction industry and the entire built environment have been invaded by foreign artisans, who have displaced the indigenous ones. They, according to him, are mostly from China, India and West African countries like Togo and Benin Republic.
Awobodu’s fear is that the preference of foreign artisans may bring about the dearth of indigenous ones, who are not encouraged with patronage. “Efforts should be made to make bricklaying and other trades attractive and rewarding for the youths, who are not keen on venturing into such areas,” Awobodu said.
To stem the tide, a group under the aegis of Shelter Watch Initiatives, is grooming and retraining indigenous artisans to fill the vacuum that are likely to be created when the older generation of artisans leave the stage.
“The artisans are ageing and the youths are not replacing them. This is because of lack of proper training on the part of the youth. And that is why the foreigners are taking over that sub-sector of the industry. You now see the Togolese, the Beninese, people from the West Coast of Africa trooping to Nigeria to fill the vacuum in that area,” said Shelter Watch Initiative coordinator, Mr. Segun Olutade.
His initiative to train and retrain artisans to make them to fit into the current reality, especially in the construction industry and the built environment in general, is paying off with the retraining of over 1,000 artisans. He began with a one-day seminar, which he later realised was not impactful enough.
“For about four or five years we moved around the country with the support of the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and companies like Lafarge also supported us. After sometime we realised that one day empowerment seminar or talk shop was not giving us the desired result, which is to get jobs for these people. I have had cause to travel out of Nigeria and I realised that this is an area where we could get much more money, but unfortunately we are not tapping into it. I don’t believe that there are no jobs in Nigeria. There are jobs everywhere, especially in the construction industry and the built environment,” he said.
He continued: “It is disheartening, according to experts, that Nigeria loses N900 billion to foreigner artisans annually. And that is true. What has government done about this? We need just about N10 billion to put things right. But will our leaders allow this to be done? It is the people that were given the mandate to solve the unemployment problem in this country that are responsible for the state of unemployment that we have. Some of them are the ones bringing in these Chinese and other nationals to work in Nigeria. And that is a serious capital flight of some sort. Monies paid to these people are sent by them to their various countries. If Nigerians are to know the truth about what is happening in this country they will be sad.”
The built environment, he said, is one sector where developed countries like Germany and others key into when they have problems. But sadly, according to him, “we are not looking at that sector.” “When our graduates say they don’t have jobs and cannot get jobs, I pity them, because I know that there are jobs everywhere. I can tell you that it is insincerity on the part of the government that is creating unemployment in Nigeria. If you give me the opportunity, I can identify two million jobs in Nigeria with my experience at the NDE.” Olutade was the first Public Relation Officer (PRO) for the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in Ogun State.
“When I left NDE I started a television programme, Solid Homes, about 10 to 15 years ago, on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA 10), Gateway Television (GTV) and MITV. And I moved on to Shelter Watch with prominent Nigerians. What we did then was organising seminars and talk shops to empower and re-orientate them. We did the first talk shop for the artisans in the built environment. When I say the built artisans, I mean the bricklayers, the carpenters, the masons, plumbers, tillers and every other artisan involved in the built environment,” Olutade said.
About 1,000 artisans have so far benefitted from the training, which he said has been facilitated by the support from institutions like the Yaba College of Technology and the Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH.)
“When my organisation, Shelter Watch Initiative, met with the Federal Government we asked them if they could create the means of getting jobs for the artisans. But they gave us the excuse that they are not well trained to guarantee answering us in the affirmative. So, we resolved to take a module from the Nigeria Institute of Building (NIOB) to retrain them in the polytechnics. And we started a three-month part-time programme, first at the Yaba College of Technology and later moved to the Lagos State Polytechnics. We are permanently at the Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) in Ikorodu, Lagos,” he said.
He continued: “After the programme we graduated them in a colourful ceremony where they wore academic gowns and were presented with certificates. Having done that we tried it at the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State. We have seen situations where father and son were in the same class. For instance there is a man in the same welding class with his son. That is the way we train them. We update their knowledge, which is more or less getting obsolete, repackage them to make them relevant to now and encourage the youth to be attracted to these skills. Like I said earlier, the older artisans are ageing and the youths are not keen on taking over from them.”
Regrettably, Olutade said it is those given the burden of providing employment that are emasculating the youths. “Unfortunately, our leaders are culpable with their involvement in encouraging foreign artisans to come in their droves to take over that area. You would be shocked if you knew the personalities involved in this. They are well placed people in the government and the society. They are the ones actually widening the unemployment gap,” he said.
He, however, said people should not despair as there are some personalities in government who are touched by this development and are working towards changing it. “We have, on our part, trained about 1,000 artisans and we are still training more. Those we have trained are doing well, but the point is when there are no jobs for them, they would not want to come for the training. So we now look at it from the angle of partnering with some state governments,” he said.
This, according to him, is where the Ogun State government has taken the lead in supporting the initiative. “We now look at it from the angle of partnering with some state governments. This we have done with Ogun State Government to establish what we call job centres. In a couple of months Nigerians would have the opportunity of picking artisans from the centre the way they are doing it abroad. Not the rag wearing ones that you pick under the bridge, no. That is why we have not said anything in the last one year. We are busy repackaging the artisans with the Ogun State Government. We call it Job Centre Initiative (JCI),” he said.
He continued: “In the next three months going by the sincerity of Ogun State Government, the first set of about 1,000 trained artisans would also train another 3,000. It is going to be ratio 3:1, one person would train three others and in no time about 3,000 people would have been trained. These 3,000 would again train about 5,000 others. And 5,000 would train about 10,000.
“We are not training them to offer them employment, no. What we are doing is repackage them. Once we repackage the industry you don’t need to look for jobs anywhere anymore. We will gradually drive away the foreigners and take back the industry.
“And in getting jobs for them, we have gone to the Federal Government to seek their endorsement by way of letters, which they have given to us to give to the people to employ them based on the retraining we have done for them. What is important is sincerity on the part of government. You cannot go to China and see about 100 Nigerians working together in a particular company. It is never done. It’s only in Nigeria that you see such things happening. It is in this country that you will see a Chinese, who cannot speak passable English being made purchasing Manager and Nigerians with good education working under him. You only see in Nigeria Master Degree holders being paid N20,000 as salaries in a month. This is appalling.”
He described as appalling situations where a Nigerian firm employed more than 7,000 foreigners to work for it when qualified Nigerians are crying daily of not being employed.
“For instance, I can tell you that a company belonging to a Nigerian has about 7,000 Chinese and Indian artisans doing the jobs, which ordinarily Nigerians could have done. We have written to the Federal Government about this and we are waiting for the steps they will take to redress this anomaly. The company is in Ogun State.
“As if that is not enough, there are about 3,000 Chinese in another company just as I can authoritatively tell you that a company, which the Federal Government has interest has about 4,000 Chinese artisans. We also wrote to the Minister of Labour. We have equally sat down with the Ministry of Labour to talk about this. The Presidency cannot say they are not aware of this. They have our files in the Presidency. We have written to them about this I am not a stranger to the Chief of Staff to the President; he knows about this. There is no argument about this, they are aware of this development. We have exchanged so many letters on this. We wanted to take the Federal Government to court on this. We also protested at the National Assembly. We have also protested about this against the company in question, which has its headquarters in Lagos,” he said.
He however, said artisans’ training and retraining can only work when various governments show sincerity of purpose. “The initiative can only work in an environment where we have sincerity of purpose. In Ogun State for instance, we want to empower 10,000 youths and ensure jobs for about five thousand artisans. We are taking it in batches. Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government has given a centre to use. It’s opposite The Redeemed Camp in Mowe, Ogun State. Mowe traditional head has given us a place there as one of our centres. We also have BIZ, a German group as our technical partner. They are in Nigeria. What we need is a government committed to this project and truly sincere,” he said.
Olutade’s projection is that when the pilot project is completed in Ogun State, about 10,000 youths would have been trained and retrained, with about 5,000 of them guaranteed employment.
“I can say, all things being equal that in the next two months Ogun State will produce artisans that are well trained and ready to offer their services to the nation’s built environment. And these artisans would no longer be offered peanuts for the services they will be rendering. What we discovered was that the youths are not encouraged to become artisans because of the peanuts being offered them.
“Also their mode of dressing is another aspect we have worked on. They will no longer be dressing in tattered clothes and they will be presentable. We now have graduates in the Aluminium Industry and they are bringing their knowledge to bear on the industry. We have a lot of graduates we are training too. We are training the youths free of charge and these youths are equally training others. In Ogun State alone there are about twenty-three thousand job opportunities. This we are doing because we want to fill the vacuum that may likely be created when the older ones leave the stage.
“There is no state in the country that would not need up to about 7,000 skilled artisans. This is because most of the artisans doing this jobs are dying and ageing and they like I said, need to be replaced and that is why the foreigners have the chance to come in large number,” he said.
