Why Nigeria doesn’t need more training programmes but better employment systems

By SAM DAIBO Nigeria has become a nation of training programmes. Every week, somewhere across the country, another graduation ceremony celebrates young people completing courses in coding, welding, agribusiness, fashion design, renewable energy or entrepreneurship. Governments launch new empowerment schemes.

Development partners fund fresh skills initiatives. Companies proudly invest in youth capacity-building. Yet millions of Nigerians remain unemployed, underemployed or unemployable.

If training alone created jobs, Nigeria should be experiencing an employment boom. Instead, we face an uncomfortable truth: Nigeria does not have a training deficit. It has an employment-system deficit.

For too long, we have treated unemployment as though it were simply a skills problem. We assume that once young people acquire technical knowledge, economic opportunities will naturally follow. But employment does not work that way.

Between the two lies an ecosystem that connects skills to opportunity. A young software developer without employers looking for digital talent remains unemployed. A trained welder without access to thriving industries or finance to acquire equipment struggles to earn a living.

A farmer may adopt improved agricultural practices, but without quality inputs, reliable markets and affordable transport, higher productivity rarely translates into higher income. Training without an employment ecosystem is like building an airport without airlines. The infrastructure exists, but nothing moves.