The Nation Newspaper

Tag: manpower

  • ‘Fed Govt committed to addressing manpower gap in renewable energy’

    ‘Fed Govt committed to addressing manpower gap in renewable energy’

    Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Uche Nnaji, has said Federal Government is committed to addressing manpower gap in the renewable energy (RE) industry.

    He made the statement at the groundbreaking ceremony for the establishment of Barefoot Renewable Energy (RE) College in Kogi State.

    Nnaji said: “This college marks a significant moment in our national jou rney towards sustainable development and energy transition. Today, we are not just laying the foundation for a building; we are also planting the seeds of innovation, sustainable progress and a brighter future for our nation. The establishment of this college shows Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology’s (FMIST’s) commitment to addressing the manpower gap in the Renewable Energy (RE) industry and harnessing our abundant energy resources through effective collaboration with the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN).

    “The vision behind this college is very simple yet very much consolidated; as it is focused on the establishment of a college of excellence that will equip our youth with skills, technical

    knowledge and academic proficiency and certification needed to drive the renewable energy sector. This college and academy will offer a robust and comprehensive curriculum that encompasses the aspects of renewable energy, including solar, wind, hydro, bioenergy,

    etc. The students will benefit from state-of-the-art facilities, hands-on training and a college composed of leading experts in the field of energy.

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    “It is very pertinent to emphasise that the success of this institution will rely on the support of the state government and the communities to ensure the nurture and growth of the wonderful initiative we are celebrating today. I, therefore, use this opportunity to solicit the support of the indigenes and Kogi State government in driving the process; through the creation of conducive environment for the sustainability of research, innovation and practical applications of Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) in the rural communities.”

    The Director/Chief Executive Officer of Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN), Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha, said: “Today marks a significant milestone in our journey towards transitioning from

    fossil-based energy resources to renewable energy. Addressing the energy manpower gap is crucial for making substantial progress in this sector. The Barefoot Renewable Energy Academy aims to bridge the energy manpower gap, driving innovation, competence and self-reliance in the renewable energy sector.

    In recent weeks, with the invaluable support of the Honourable Minister, my own boss, Chief Uche Nnaji, we celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for a solar panel module assembly plant in Akpugo, Nkanu West Local Government, Enugu State. These efforts are aimed at driving innovation, competence and self-reliance in the renewable energy sector.

  • Agriculture: CDA Director decries shortage of manpower in Africa

    The Director, Centre for Dryland Agriculture (CDA), Bayero University, Kano (BUK), Prof. Jibrin Jibrin on Wednesday in Kano decried what he described as serious shortage of skilled manpower in sub-Saharan Africa, saying that it has continued to retard the development of agricultural technology in the region.

    Professor Jibrin stated this in BUK while briefing reporters on activities lined up for the third International Conference on Drylands to be hosted by CDA between September 24 and 27, 2018 in BUK.

    According to him, the biennial international conference on drylands is one of the programmes of the CDA that provides a platform for dissemination of research findings, networking and sharing of experiences between scientists, practitioners and other stakeholders.

    He said the theme of the Conference: “Resource Constraints, Conflicts and Changing Climate in the Drylands: Options for Attaining SDGs,” remains apt, “because attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the drylands requires concerted efforts towards addressing myriads of problems related to climate change, high population pressure, and unsustainable land use practices.”

    “These are the underlining issues that lead to further degradation of land, low agricultural productivity, food and nutrition insecurity, severe poverty, conflicts and civil unrests.”

    Jubrin added that part of issues to be discussed at the Conference include Crops and animal improvement for adaptation to climate change; crop-livestock integration for improved income and food security; integrated soil fertility management in a changing environment; range land and pasture development: the future of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa; ecosystem, water use and conflicts; application of decision support systems in dryland resource management; millennial and agripreneureship for sustained economic growth; and agricultural financing and politics for sustainable development.

    He further stated that, “this year’s conference will bring together scientists, farmers, policy makers, civil society organizations and the private sector from across the globe to examine how the SDGs would be attained in the drylands in the face of resource scarcity, climate change and emerging conflicts.”

    “The Conference will examine how public policies, research and development programmes will contribute in ensuring food security and attainment of the SDGs. There will also be about 70 paper presentations, a special session on the project ‘Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA).”

    Among those who are expected to speak at the Conference include Dr. Peter Craufurd, Strategic Research Team Leader for Sustainable Intensification in Africa at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT); Bernard Vanlauwe, IITA, Kenya; Mr. Suffyan Koroma, FAO Representative to Nigeria; Raffaello Cervini, Lead Environmental Economist with the World Bank’s Environmental and Natural Resources Global Practice.

  • ‘Invest in manpower’

    Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC) President, Comrade Mohammed Attahiru Yunusa, has urged the government to invest in manpower development to improve service delivery.

    Speaking at the National Administrative Council and Central Working Committee meeting in Kaduna, Yunusa said the government should know that workers are the greatest asset of any organisation and not the machinery being imported.

    He lamented that in Africa, employers don’t take care of their workers, but invested hugely in infrastructure, advising the government to take care of its human resource through trainings and good remunerations for the overall development of the nation.

    He said the union faced the challenges of insecurity, lack of payment for overtime, leave allowances, and non-payment of first 28 days allowance and salaries in some places of work.

    He said the association enjoined workers to be productive  and believed in the rule of law, social partnership and dialogue to resolve issues and was not considering strike action.

  • Tackle skilled manpower challenge, NCS urges Fed Govt

    Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) President, Prof. Adesola Aderounmu, has urged the Federal Government to raise modern manpower that could  drive the economy.

    He lamented that nearly 90 per cent of technologies used in the country is imported despite the huge knowledge infrastructure of 162 legally recognised universities, 125 polytechnics and over 500 agencies.

    “It is sad that after 58 years of independence, Nigeria has failed to come up with neither a globally recognised company nor product originating from Nigerian indigenous technology because the national economy had not been technology-driven,” he said.

    Giving a keynote address at the first International Conference on ICT for National Development and its sustainability organised by the Faculty of Communication and Information Sciences, University of Ilorin, to mark its 10th anniversary, Aderounmu urged the Federal Government to develop the ICT sector through the establishment of research centres, technology parks and incubation centres across the country.

    He added that the provision of reliable and affordable infrastructure and provision of fiscal incentives for indigenous software developers would also spur the development of the sector.

    Speaking on: “Leveraging ICT for National development and its sustainability”, Aderoumu, a Professor of Computer Science at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), IIe-Ife, lamented that the  economy has not fully embraced technology as its driving force.

    He suggested that the government could develop the sector through the creation of a special fund to assist start-ups as well as grow developers, enactment of a law that mandates MDAs to patronise indigenous software while mandating the immediate implementation of the approved scheme of service for IT professionals.

    While recommending that priority should be given to registered IT professional in the award of IT contracts, Aderounmu urged the academia to promote productive collaborations both internal and external and create learning opportunities for the students.

    He don said: “The system of mentoring, apprenticeship and tutelage, which existed in the past should be re-introduced and strengthened. Split-site arrangements should be encouraged to enable young researchers to be acquainted with new trends, globally. Spend a considerable portion of its yearly budget on global promotion activities.”

  • Powerless manpower

    Powerless manpower

    If course, there are reasons the Nigeria Police Force is largely ineffective. The Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Zone 5, Mr. Rasheed Akintunde, supplied a major reason during his tour of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, on February 8.

    Akintunde was quoted as saying: “The funniest thing is that only 20 per cent of the police personnel are the ones working, the rest are just there. Talking about  20 per cent working; if you look at it well, every ‘big man’ wants his own security, they want 30 men to secure them instead of supporting the whole community by saying we should give resources for police to do the work so that the environment will be secured. They only want security for themselves.”

    He added: “Even religious leaders want personal security. So after all that, we find that it’s only 20 per cent remaining to guard other places. Even for government’s commission too, they can load 20 units for it whereas they need only seven, so that’s why the 20 per cent comes in.”

    It is noteworthy that the Bayelsa State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Don Awunah, reportedly thanked the AIG for his visit but complained that the 4,000 police personnel in the state were inadequate. In addition to the manpower problem, Awunah mentioned logistics, equipment and accommodation as major issues.

    Three days later, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mr. Mike Okiro, said in an interview in Abuja that more than 150,000 policemen were attached to VIPs and unauthorised persons in the country.

    The former Inspector General of Police said:  ”We cannot afford to have more than half of the population of the police in private hands…We could not sustain the enforcement of the order on the withdrawal of policemen attached to unqualified persons in the country because of lack of funds.” Okiro reportedly observed that persons who were ministers about 10 or 15 years ago still went about with police security.

    The question must be asked: Is the Police Force meant to serve so-called privileged Nigerians to the detriment of the larger society? Of course, the answer is in the negative.

    It is inexcusable that the identified police manpower shortage is compounded by a privileged few who don’t seem to care what happens to the rest of the society as long as they enjoy police protection. It is equally inexcusable that the police authorities have failed to correct the anomaly.  With the way things are, the police can’t change if there are no changes.

  • Group, Babcock varsity sign MoU on manpower

    The President, Church Administrators Society of Nigeria (CASON), Pastor Seyi Oladimeji, has said the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the society signed with Babcock University, Ilishan, Ogun State, will bridge the managerial skills gap in church administration in Nigeria.

    Speaking with The Nation on the sideline of CASON’s fourth Annual Conference in Lagos, Oladimeji said with the deal, CASON and Babcock University will commence registration for 2017/2018 Executive Diploma in Church Administration, which could be used to study Masters in Business Administration (MBA) in church administration.

    He said CASON believes that those saddled with administering church resources, both human and material, needed the requisite knowledge that will help them do it better. “Because most of the people administering the churches in Nigeria are not trained, especially those in the Pentecostals,” he said.

  • Danvic centre boosts industry manpower

    To boost skilled manpower in the  industry, Danvic Petroleum Training Centre has traied the first set of geosciences manpower.

    The centre designs a six-month intensive programme for graduates and young professionals of geosciences to acquaint them with practical aspects of the oil and gas industry.

    The six-month course is divided into four modules, comprising general lectures and theory as well as practical sessions taught by practicing geoscientists and engineers from the oil and gas industry. The final module is the industrial attachment, where each trainee joins a group and carries out group project, using industry based software in seismic interpretation, petrophysics, and reservoir modeling, among others.

    After the attachment, the trainees are further deployed to oil and gas firms for one year internship to enable them participate in the execution of practical exploration and production projects.

    Danvic Petroleum International Corporation, Managing Director/Chief Executive,  Dr Mayowa Afe, said it was a step towards the realisation of the dream and vision of establishing a full-fledged private oil and gas university that would complement government efforts. The centre would also help to provide the necessary manpower for the oil and gas industry not only in Nigeria, but across the Africa and thereby increase indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry, he added.

    Afe observed that recent geosciences graduates from some of the universities were lacking in the necessary skills and exposure that could guarantee their employability in today’s multi-task world class geosciences environment.

    According to him, this development has over the years and before the advent of the local content policy, led to many international oil and gas companies (IOCs) operating in Nigeria go abroad to recruit personnel for jobs in Nigeria, or at best go to foreign universities in United States (US), United Kingdom (UK) and Europe to recruit privileged Nigerian students studying abroad at the detriment of their colleagues in Nigerian universities.

    Afe told The Nation in Lagos that the Centre was set up with the aim of bridging the gap between the university theory and the oil and gas practical knowledge requirements. This, he said, would ensure the employability of the Nigerian graduates from the geosciences disciplines and advance the local content policy objectives in the oil and gas sector. He stated that all the graduating trainees had already been fixed and accepted to carry out a year internship programme with various oil companies to execute the practical exploration and production project.

    He said: “The plan is that at the completion of this one year internship programme, all these trainess would be industry ready, and will be gainfully employed thereafter,” adding that before their acceptance in the various oil and gas companies they were rigorously interviewed and found worthy of employment.

    Afe, who is also the president, Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN), noted that global demand for hydrocarbons was constantly growing yet the oil and gas industry was facing challenges such as discovery of new reservoirs and better understanding of the architecture of existing reservoirs in order to optimise their development.

    “In view of these challenges, Danvic Petroleum School in the nearest future would go beyond the petroleum geosciences programme and expand to include petroleum engineering,” Afe said, adding that the Centre would continue to train students in new concepts, new technologies such as industrial software, entrepreneurship and leadership skills as well as organising appropriate field trips to fully equip them for the future.

  • How OPS, others can tackle manpower challenge, by ITF

    How OPS, others can tackle manpower challenge, by ITF

    The Industrial Training Fund, (ITF) has said the Organised Private Sector (OPS) must partner with relevant stakeholders to address manpower and skills challenges.

    Speaking in Lagos during an interactive forum organised by the Ikeja Area Office of the Fund, its Director-General and Chief Executive, Dr. Juliet Chukkas Onaeko said ITF was repositioning itself in line with the Federal Governments’ policy direction.

    She said such interactive sessions would enable the agency to feel the pulse of stakeholders, such as the organised private sector, and address some of the issues they may have concerning the fund’s mandate.

    Onaeko said in order to provide training and entrepreneurial opportunities for youths,  ITF will continue to encourage its partners and contributors that fulfil their obligations to it.

    According to her, the Ikeja Area Interactive forum, like those of ot her area offices is organised yearly. They offer ITF platform to interface and interact with captains of industry and members of the OPS to acquaint them with emerging trends and issues in human resource development.

  • Experts address manpower challenges in Nigeria

    The vexed issue of adequate manpower and industrial skills acquisition needed to raise the bar of productivity and GDP in Nigeria reared its head again at a vocational training forum attended by both foreign and local experts in industrial electronics and industrial mechanics, recently in Lagos.

    Lack of proper practical training, experts argued, accounted for substandard products, low productivity in industries.

    The Chairman, Exam Board, German Dual Vocational Training Programme, Dr. Ing. Jens Gebhardt, while addressing the issue of power and skills acquisition noticed that Nigeria has very good potential man power that tiers of government could harness for the exploration of her abundant resources.

    Ludwig Gruenter, Short Term Expert in Industrial Electronics, in his own comment expressed that a fair number of Nigerian workers lacked necessary skills acquisition in manning industrial equipment.

    “When they do things, they don’t know they are wrong,” he said, adding that they didn’t have the necessary technical know-how.

    He scored level of industrial development in Nigeria at par, he however remarked that there were not enough people to explore and maintain vast resources.

    Gruenter counterpart, Mrs. Stephanie Thalheim-Schauff, in her own comment spotted grey portion in the area of standard products and security of employment in term of competence.

    Corroborating facts on lack of proper practical training background especially from tertiary school level, Funmilayo Shodinmu an Industrial Training with Dangote Groups, remarked that while in school they had almost no plant with which to put into practice theories they learnt at the College of Science Technology.

    While Timothy Agbo also selected from Dangote Groups, tutored in Welding and Fabrication at the College of Science and Technology in his own version said, he didn’t have plant to work with while in school until his final year.

    While charting solutions, Gruenter said proper and thorough education of people who are learning would salvage a lot.

    Gebhardt, Gruenter and Thalheim-Schauff spoke alongside German Deputy Consul General, and Head of Corporate Service, Jorg Steckhan, and other industrial experts at the maiden edition of graduation ceremony of German Dual Vocational Training Partnership with Nigeria.

    The graduation in which 22 apprentices graduated in Industrial Electronics and Industrial Mechanics was at the instance of Delegation of German Industry and Commerce, Nigeria, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Lagos State Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Ogun State Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture (OGUNCIMA), Abuja Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and agriculture (ABUCIMMA) and other stakeholders.

  • Experts address manpower challenges in Nigeria

    The vexed issue of adequate manpower and industrial skills acquisition needed to raise the bar of productivity and GDP in Nigeria reared its head again at a vocational training forum attended by both foreign and local experts in industrial electronics and industrial mechanics, recently in Lagos.

    Lack of proper practical training, experts argued, accounted for substandard products, low productivity in industries.

    The Chairman, Exam Board, German Dual Vocational Training Programme, Dr. Ing. Jens Gebhardt, while addressing the issue of power and skills acquisition noticed that Nigeria has very good potential man power that tiers of government could harness for the exploration of her abundant resources.

    Ludwig Gruenter, Short Term Expert in Industrial Electronics, in his own comment expressed that a fair number of Nigerian workers lacked necessary skills acquisition in manning industrial equipment.

    “When they do things, they don’t know they are wrong,” he said, adding that they didn’t have the necessary technical know-how.

    He scored level of industrial development in Nigeria at par, he however remarked that there were not enough people to explore and maintain vast resources.

    Gruenter counterpart, Mrs. Stephanie Thalheim-Schauff, in her own comment spotted grey portion in the area of standard products and security of employment in term of competence.

    Corroborating facts on lack of proper practical training background especially from tertiary school level, Funmilayo Shodinmu an Industrial Training with Dangote Groups, remarked that while in school they had almost no plant with which to put into practice theories they learnt at the College of Science Technology.

    While Timothy Agbo also selected from Dangote Groups, tutored in Welding and Fabrication at the College of Science and Technology in his own version said, he didn’t have plant to work with while in school until his final year.

    While charting solutions, Gruenter said proper and thorough education of people who are learning would salvage a lot.

    Gebhardt, Gruenter and Thalheim-Schauff spoke alongside German Deputy Consul General, and Head of Corporate Service, Jorg Steckhan, and other industrial experts at the maiden edition of graduation ceremony of German Dual Vocational Training Partnership with Nigeria.

    The graduation in which 22 apprentices graduated in Industrial Electronics and Industrial Mechanics was at the instance of Delegation of German Industry and Commerce, Nigeria, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Lagos State Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Ogun State Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture (OGUNCIMA), Abuja Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and agriculture (ABUCIMMA) and other stakeholders.