Nigeria’s Looming Skills Crisis: A Nation Producing Certificates Instead of Competence

By Frank Ofili

In 2021, my auto technician, Saubana Odekunle, raised a concern that at the time sounded like an ordinary complaint from a frustrated artisan. Today, it is becoming a frightening national reality. He lamented bitterly that he could no longer find young Nigerians willing to learn automobile repairs as apprentices. According to him, while young men from Togo and the Benin Republic were eager, disciplined, and committed to learning the trade, many Nigerian secondary school leavers showed little interest in acquiring practical skills. Instead, many preferred operating commercial motorcycles and tricycles, engaging in sports betting and Baba Ijebu, or chasing the illusion of quick wealth through internet fraud popularly known as “Yahoo Yahoo” or 419.

At the time, Saubana warned that if the trend continued, Nigeria would one day face a dangerous shortage of skilled artisans and technicians. His fears, unfortunately, are gradually becoming reality.

Our system is designed primarily to produce certificates rather than competence. From secondary school to tertiary institutions, emphasis is placed more on passing examinations and acquiring paper qualifications than on developing practical abilities, vocational expertise, problem-solving capacity, and technical proficiency.

A few months ago, I experienced this crisis firsthand when I needed the services of a carpenter for a roofing-related job in my house. Surprisingly, finding a capable young carpenter proved almost impossible. After considerable effort, I eventually found one whose age could not have been less than sixty years. Curious, I asked why he did not come with a younger assistant or apprentice who could handle the more physically demanding aspects of the work. His response echoed Saubana’s earlier lamentation. According to him, young people are no longer interested in learning trades. Even when some agree to apprentice, many are impatient, unwilling to endure the learning process, and too eager to declare themselves experts after acquiring only superficial knowledge.

This challenge is not limited to roadside artisans. It has become a major concern even among Nigeria’s largest employers and industrialists. Africa’s richest businessman, Aliko Dangote, also publicly lamented the shortage of skilled Nigerian technicians and artisans needed for industrial operations. As a result, many technical positions had to be filled by expatriates, particularly Indians, because competent local manpower was unavailable in sufficient numbers.

With all sense of modesty, I am in a position to confirm that this problem is both real and alarming. Recruiting competent artisans and technicians has become an increasingly herculean task. Even among university and polytechnic graduates, finding candidates who possess practical competence alongside academic qualifications is extremely difficult. In many cases, graduates arrive with certificates but lack the hands-on skills required to function effectively in the workplace.

The situation has become so severe that many organisations are now compelled to create internal training programmes to bridge the glaring competence gap. In my organisation, newly recruited graduates often undergo up to twelve months of intensive practical training — essentially a form of apprenticeship — before they can adequately fit into their roles. Several major Nigerian organisations, including United Bank for Africa, have adopted similar systems to compensate for deficiencies in the educational system.

Recently, the CEO of Moniepoint, Tosin Eniolorunda, also drew national attention to the growing employability crisis in Nigeria. He revealed that the company was struggling to fill about 500 vacancies because many applicants did not meet the firm’s “global standards.”

According to him:

“We have maybe 500 vacancies and we are struggling to find people to fill those roles… the few people that we found were not up to the global standards that we need.”

His comments immediately sparked widespread backlash online. Many Nigerians argued that the country already produces world-class professionals working in global companies such as Google, Microsoft, Meta and Stripe. Others suggested that the real problem may not necessarily be competence alone, but issues such as salary expectations, working conditions, unrealistic hiring standards, and inadequate investment in local talent development by employers.

Following the criticism, Eniolorunda later clarified that his comments were directed mainly at shortages in senior technical talent and the devastating impact of brain drain, not that Nigerians are generally incompetent. He also emphasized that Moniepoint remains committed to hiring Nigerians and investing in talent development.

Nevertheless, the controversy highlighted a painful reality many employers already understand: despite Nigeria’s enormous youth population and rising number of graduates, there remains a significant shortage of highly skilled and industry-ready manpower in several critical sectors of the economy.

To be clear, the issue is not that Nigeria lacks intelligent, qualified, or talented young people. There are still many hardworking and capable youths who are determined to succeed legitimately. However, they are too few compared to the overwhelming number entering the labour market yearly without employable skills.

At the heart of this crisis lies a fundamental flaw in Nigeria’s educational system. Our system is designed primarily to produce certificates rather than competence. From secondary school to tertiary institutions, emphasis is placed more on passing examinations and acquiring paper qualifications than on developing practical abilities, vocational expertise, problem-solving capacity, and technical proficiency.

Consequently, many graduates leave school with impressive academic credentials but little capacity to translate theoretical knowledge into productive work. Employers are then forced to spend enormous time and resources retraining individuals who supposedly have already completed formal education.

Successive governments have attempted to address this problem through various intervention programmes such as the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and the National Open Apprenticeship Scheme (NOAS). These initiatives were intended to provide vocational opportunities for youths who could not proceed to tertiary institutions and to promote skills acquisition as a viable pathway to economic empowerment.

Unfortunately, like many noble policies in Nigeria, these programmes have not fully achieved their objectives. Poor funding, weak implementation, inadequate infrastructure, societal preference for white-collar jobs, and declining interest among many young school leavers have continued to undermine their effectiveness.

Beyond government failure, society itself must also share part of the blame. We have created a culture where many people value titles and certificates more than competence and productivity. Parents often push children toward university degrees regardless of aptitude, while vocational skills are wrongly viewed as inferior options meant only for those who are academically unsuccessful. Meanwhile, countries that prioritize technical education and vocational training continue to build strong industrial economies powered by skilled manpower.

If this dangerous trend continues unchecked, Nigeria may soon face a paradoxical crisis: millions of unemployed youths coexisting with a severe shortage of employable manpower. Industries will struggle to find competent workers, productivity will decline, unemployment will rise further, and dependence on foreign technical expertise will continue to increase.

The solution requires urgent and deliberate educational reform. Nigeria’s educational system must be overhauled to place equal emphasis on practical skill acquisition and theoretical learning. Technical colleges, vocational centres, and apprenticeship systems must be modernized, properly funded, and made attractive to young people. Industries and educational institutions must collaborate more closely to ensure that graduates acquire relevant workplace competencies before leaving school.

Most importantly, society must stop measuring success solely by possession of certificates and begin to value competence, creativity, innovation, and productivity.

Unless this transformation occurs quickly, Nigeria risks producing a massive population of educated but unemployable youths — a situation that could become one of the country’s greatest social and economic challenges in the years ahead.