The Benue Investment and Property Company (BIPC) on Tuesday trained students of Fr Moses Adasu University, Makurdi, on skill acquisitions.
Dr Raymond Asemakaha, Group Managing Director of the company, told the participants to make right choices and take action in acquiring skills rather than relying on only certificates.
The Newsmen reports that the team of the programme is “Students Turning Point Programme for Tertiary Institutions in Benue” and tagged “Fuelling Benue’s Future”.
Asemakaha decried that out of the over seven million people in the state, over 1.7 million were unemployed.
He further decried that over 40 per cent of current jobs in the state were given to outsiders because of a lack of skills.
He said that industries are springing up in the state daily but expressed worry there are grossly inadequate skilled people locally to do the job; instead, workers are hired from outside the state to do the job.
He said there must be a shift and urged the students to brace up for the future by acquiring skills while they learn to acquire a university education certificate.
“We want these students to plug into the business space so they will be able to take up these jobs, which is why we have introduced the Student Techno Code and are going to take it across all tertiary institutions in Benue.
“This university alone has a total number of 8,100 new intakes this year, and we want them to have good business ideas and be part of the skills ecosystem so as to take advantage of available job opportunities.
“Though education is key, skills are also the future currency, and for the future to work in your favour, you must position yourself by acquiring the right skills.
“What BIPC is doing is not just to train the students; we have factories operating, and some of the people working there are experts we brought in from other states and outside the country.
“If we have indigenes from the state that can do the work, the money would remain within our economy,” he said.
Asemakaha further stated that the company was lobbying for the Startup Act to domesticate it so that when students acquire the necessary knowledge, they would be able to access funding and start businesses on their own.
He added that the initiative would be carried out in all institutions across the state, as the aim is to make students go into skills development.
Speaking during the programme, Mr Gobir Ismail urged the students to have a mindset of starting a set goal so as to enable them to achieve higher outcomes.
Gobir further said they should also apply digital skills while building up their business, as it would help them interact with other business minds around the globe.
He also said that Benue has talents, but they are not being harnessed,, as this has to do with having the right mindset to achieve the skills needed to succeed.