We Need A Nation Of Self-Reliant Youths – Dr Onoriode Irikefe
As the Federal Government intensifies efforts at building a nation of self-reliant youths in its drive to key into the new world order of a generation of vocationally empowered people through improved educational curriculums in partnership with organized private sector initiatives, a renowned author, human development expert, trainer, and consultant, Dr. Benjamin Onoriode Irikefe, has in his latest work taken the lead at charting a path in that direction.
In this interview, Dr. Irikefe in his analysis has broken down the ambiguities on the path to successful graduates in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions of learning using his book Handbook for the Generation and Impartation of Course-Profession Derived Businesses and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises – A Guide to Raising Successful Graduate Entrepreneurs, which pundits have variously described as both groundbreaking and game-changing.
He described the book as a paradigm shift towards the global re-engineering of youths for more productive generation as a practical step to achieving the millennium goals and objectives of the current administration and future ones. Excepts.
The motivation behind the book
I want to help my fellow Nigerians as citizens and support the government and other relevant stakeholders in finding lasting solutions to the burgeoning rate of unemployment. I want to encourage Nigerians in general to adopt a multifaceted approach to income generation and to contribute my little quota as a citizen to national development and insecurity abatement.
What is the book all about?
The end goal or purpose of the book is to ensure that all graduates of tertiary institutions have multiple marketable skills, ventures, businesses, vocations, and enterprises with which they can make a living after graduation. Aside from the preceding, all graduates or every Nigerian needs multiple streams or sources of income because of the unabating “cost of living crisis.”
In the case of students, what strategy can be used to achieve that?
For their own benefits and post-graduation life, they must be made to have readily actualisable course-profession derived businesses/vocations, specific ventures they have practicalised and mastered every semester or academic session. With this, they are bound to have at least eight course-derived businesses they can make a living with after graduation.
Students must also familiarise themselves with various post-graduation entities that can support their ventures, both governmental and non-governmental.
The two books you have written on skill acquisition have been often voluminous, each averaging 1,000 pages. Where do you source your materials?
The truth is that literary materials abound everywhere. I did not create them. I am just fortunate that God used some entities to provide numerous trainees and training opportunities to get vast practical and theoretical experiences in skill acquisition. Foremost amongst them are Federal Government entities like the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs (MNDA), National Agency for the Great Green Wall (NAGGW), Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), and the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, e.t.c.
I have also received training on capacity building from USAID (United States Agency for International Development), the World Bank, Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Nigeria Opportunities for Industrialisation Centre (NOIC), and numerous others. You can not stand on anything. A river that forgets its source must surely dry up.
The truth is that I am like a breadmaker. I just organize existing materials and ask subject matter specialists to peer review the work before publication. No man is an island. The work took almost two decades to assemble.
Aside from the immediate and student-related goals of your book, what is the grand goal of your new book?
In an actual sense, the grand goal is driven by a grand strategy that has the overreaching purpose of creatively harvesting a large number of tertiary institutions’ graduates that
are churned out every year that have hitherto appeared to be a threat to viable exportable assets that can bring in foreign exchange earnings and for national development.
I have scanned through the book. Is it limited to students of tertiary education alone?
The truth is that even though the book appears to be centered on students of tertiary Institutions, it actually has a wider and more general applicability. The book has been designed in such a way that, aside from students and lecturers of tertiary Institutions, the other persons who can use or benefit from the contents of the book include members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), persons who are already graduates of tertiary institutions through graduate enrollment programs, Local, States and Federal Government Civil Servants, prospective retirees, members of the military, security, and intelligence services, as well as persons or entities that are involved in skill acquisition training and empowerment programs. The book has been structured in such a way that it provides pathways or templates for any interested individual to have multiple marketable skills/enterprises/ventures/businesses that can be used to generate multiple streams of income or income-generating activities. The rising cost of living crisis is a reality. This has led to all sorts of dissonance and anomalies in the whole system.
What, then should be the role of government in all these?
The government should create an environment that will enable these schemes to function by providing proper regulatory and supervisory oversight, using its existing structures and organs. It should also galvanize and optimize existing enterprise support and funding resources. Several abound for MSMEs.
Do your postulations and recommendations involve building new infrastructure and structures?
The templates in the new book strongly advocate the use and application of existing resources. Most research institutes and technology incubation centers, though well-equipped and funded, are actually underutilized. You do not need new structures, as they are already on the ground.
In your view, what can the government do about the large number of tertiary education graduates that are churned out every year?
The large turnout of graduates from tertiary institutions can be turned to the country’s advantage. However, they have to be unskilled and reskilled through the generation and impartation of course-derived businesses and out of whatever course of study they are into. Properly organized graduate enrollment programs can also be used to train and empower NYSC members and tertiary institution graduates who have left school.
What are your views about the general state of affairs in the country?
All that has been happening in the country will certainly end in praise by God’s grace. The nature, dimensions, and exposition of the events in the country will surely make the place better off. All stakeholders have been shaken, and what the situation dictates is that everyone has to sit up and contribute their quotas to national development. Not only elected or appointed officials. Everyone must be involved for us to move forward as a country. Enacted policies must be supported by the citizenry for these policies to work fully. Policies can not attain their full effects when they are secretly or overtly undermined.
I am sure that by the time these policies fully crystalize with the cooperation and support of the citizenry, we shall be better for it.
In your new book, you harped on a multifaceted approach to income generation. What is this concept all about?
The concept of a a multifaceted approach to income generation is a varied, aggressive, and holistic genre of multiple streams of income. It implies that the approach to income generation has to be more proactive and should be from several domains as much as possible. The concept takes into consideration the continually rising “cost of living” that has now become not a national problem but a global crisis. The concept also advocates for the drastic reduction of expenditure. Another way of making money is to save it. The more money you save, the more money at your disposal for productive ventures.
A multifaceted approach to income generation dictates that everyone needs additional sources of income, whether they are employed or not. Traditional sources of income can no longer meet the cost of living. People should engage in in-house farming and other simple economic ventures to boost their conventional incomes. This does not mean that they should get involved in unwholesome or criminal activities.
How well can this book unlock the destinies of the growing youth population, particularly the graduates of Nigeria’s educational institutions?
This book has a uniqueness, and it is synced with the current programs and policies of the Federal Ministry of Education as it concerns the making of fully-baked graduates with the capacity to create jobs through self-reliance. It is put into use practically well by the institutions of higher learning and has the potential of unlocking the destinies of our youths, turning them to job creators and not job seekers.
In view of the labyrinth of your solutions-based analysis, you seem to have forgotten to mention those in the field of politics – practically or theoretically. Could you kindly throw light in that critical knowledge base?
Politics is a very important sector in Nigeria; it is very lucrative. There are a lot of course-derived businesses and MSMEs that can be gotten out for persons that are studying political science or International Relations, e.g. preparation of political manifestos for aspirants and candidates, promoting political parties and candidates, designing political flyers and campaign organizations blueprints, etc.
● All correspondence to the author on +2348033149353 & +2348023016831