NDE trains 700 unemployed graduates in energy skills

From Yakubu Mustapha, Minna

No fewer than seven hundred (700) unemployed graduates were trained by the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in skills for energy harvest, installation and maintenance of solar power facilities to improve the present epileptic power problem in the country.

The Director-General of the scheme, Malam Abubakar Mohammed disclosed this at the weekend in Minna, at the graduation ceremony of the Solar Energy Training Scheme (SETS).

Mohammed said the enormous demand for energy in the country and the inability of the traditional sources to meet the demand, as witnessed by slow progress in power generation, propelled NDE to seek for another means of energy production and adopted the solar energy due to the abundance of sunshine in the country.

Under the scheme, Mohammed, who was represented by the Director, Special Works, Alhaji Abubakar Liman, said unemployed graduates were equipped with skills for energy harvest, installation and maintenance of solar power facilities for electricity power generation and for sustainable self-reliance.

The NDE boss said that the choice of solar was informed because it has been accepted as a safe, efficient and environmental friendly energy source. Noting that twenty (20) of the graduands were trained in Niger state.

He then admonished the graduands that they should not only take the advantage of the skills acquired for self-employment or self-reliance, but they should become vibrant employers of labour that will positively affect their generation.

Mohammed also advised them to consider forming a cooperative society, to enable them draw funds from various federal government credit schemes and especially from the Bank of Industry (BoI).

The state coordinator of United Nation Development Projects (UNDP) Alhaji Baba Wachuko also advised the graduands from Niger state to cash-in on the state’s renewable energy policy, to further raise power generation level in the country.

The representative of the graduands, Emmanuel Sunday pledged their resolve to use the skills acquired to find lasting solution to the incessant power outages currently being experienced in the country.