Nigerian graduates are unproductive and unemployable, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami has said.
“The main challenge is not unemployment,” the minister, whose professorship was recently declared illegal, explained. “I am not discarding unemployment, but the major challenge is unemployability, a situation where I cannot be able to do the technical work that my certificate has stored that I have studied.”
The Islamic cleric who made the remark on Tuesday while speaking at the prize presentation ceremony for the Katsina National Talent Hunt Challenge in Katsina, also said most graduates have allowed foreigners to take over the jobs they out to be doing.
Mr Pantami also said the high rate of unemployment in the country is because those coming out of schools are relying on the government to secure jobs for them rather than going entrepreneurial.
“As the situation is today, most of our young people after graduating from school are not in any way thinking of entrepreneurship. They are only interested in looking for government employment,” Pantami said.
“There are many job opportunities in engineering, ICT, oil and gas but most of our youths with (a) certificate if you employ them, you will discover that they will not be able to do the work you have employed them to do.
“So on daily basis, foreigners are coming to Nigeria to come and do the job for us. Most of our technical people are engaged in administrative work, while we rely on other people to come and do the technical job,” he added.
