19/09/2026
A SHOUT-OUT TO EVERY NIGERIAN BUILDING PEOPLE THROUGH PRACTICAL TRAINING
Today, I want to celebrate every training academy, vocational institution, technical instructor, workshop owner and skills-development professional who has refused to give up on Nigerians.
You are doing nation-building work in one of the most difficult environments imaginable.
You operate in an economy plagued by poverty, unemployment and declining purchasing power. Many of the people who desperately need your training cannot afford it, while those who can afford it sometimes do not fully understand its value.
We live in a society that has been conditioned to believe that university education should be respected and paid for, but practical training should be cheap—sometimes almost free.
Yet practical training is enormously expensive.
A university lecturer may teach hundreds of students in a classroom with a whiteboard and a projector. But you cannot properly train a forklift operator without a forklift. You cannot train a welder without welding machines, consumables and protective equipment. You cannot produce a competent crane operator without access to a crane. You cannot teach solar installation without panels, batteries, inverters, cables and testing instruments.
You cannot teach construction without materials.
You cannot teach agriculture without land, tools and machinery.
You cannot teach industrial safety without practical equipment.
You cannot train technicians with theories alone.
Many of these machines and training tools are imported. You must contend with fluctuating exchange rates, import duties, clearing costs and transportation. Then you must buy petrol or diesel to operate the equipment and power the facility.
You must pay instructors, technicians, administrators, rent, insurance and maintenance costs. When equipment breaks down, it is repaired at today’s price—not the price you used when planning your programme.
Sometimes, just when you think you have solved one problem, another appears.
The exchange rate changes.
Fuel prices rise.
Import duties increase.
Equipment is delayed at the port.
A machine develops a fault.
A training venue becomes unavailable.
A student who has not paid completely expects the full programme to continue without interruption.
And through all of this, you are still expected to keep your fees low, maintain international standards, provide modern equipment and produce competent graduates.
It is not easy.
That is why I salute everyone who continues to invest in the practical development of Nigerians despite these realities.
I salute the academies teaching welding, fabrication, construction, heavy-equipment operation, logistics, agriculture, renewable energy, caregiving, ICT, industrial safety and other productive skills.
I salute the instructors who patiently repeat a procedure until the learner understands it.
I salute the entrepreneurs who use personal savings to purchase training equipment because banks will not finance their vision.
I salute those who continue to subsidise training, offer payment plans and give people additional opportunities even when doing so places pressure on their businesses.
University education is important, but vocational and technical education is not inferior to it. A nation needs doctors and lawyers, but it also needs welders, technicians, equipment operators, builders, farmers, caregivers, electricians and skilled artisans.
In fact, every university, hospital, refinery, road, bridge, factory and power plant ultimately depends on practical skills.
We cannot keep importing skilled labour and exporting unemployment.
We cannot continue to tell every young Nigerian to pursue a degree while looking down on the people who can build, operate, install, repair, maintain and produce.
The people running genuine training academies are not merely selling courses. They are fighting unemployment. They are restoring dignity. They are building productive citizens and creating the human capacity upon which industries and nations depend.
So, to every genuine training provider working under these difficult conditions: I see you.
Nigeria may not celebrate you enough today, but your work matters.
Every competent person you produce is one more family with hope, one more employer with access to skilled labour, one more Nigerian capable of competing internationally, and one more step towards a nation that can build what it consumes and maintain what it builds.
Please do not give up.
Our country’s future will not be built by certificates alone. It will be built by knowledgeable hands, disciplined minds and people who have been trained to do real work.
To everyone committed to training and empowering Nigerians: thank you for continuing, despite the cost, the sacrifices and the obstacles.
You are not simply running training academies.
You are building people.
You are building industries.
You are building Nigeria.
