By Abdurrahman Umar
The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, NASENI, has assured willingness to partner with SMEs, governments, and individuals to revive the collapsed ginneries across the country.
In particular, the agency promised to revive the collapsed ginneries of Gusau, Funtua, Zaria, and Sokoto among other service provider factories as well as to give priority to facility maintenance in these industries.
The Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive of NASENI, Engr. Mohammed Sani Haruna, disclosed this on Monday during the opening ceremony of a five days intensive skills development training and youth empowerment program on Modern Methods of Tailoring and Fashion Design and its Applications in Daura, Katsina State.
According to Engr. Haruna, this particular program is the third phase of the North-West regional skill development in the implementation of President Muhammadu Buhari’s directives to the agency to ensure the development of skills of the teeming youths which is necessary for job creation and self-employment generation.
The training, he said, targets to improve the hands-on experience of the tailoring and design professionals in Katsina State with advanced training tools such as motorized straight sewing machines, computerized embroidery, weaving machine, pattern design, steam pressing among other occupational resources required to undertake all kinds of simple and advanced cloths design and home fabrics to satisfy tastes, customers and attracts patronage.
Some of the trainees
“The one hundred trainees in this exercise were carefully selected from those already in the field of fashion, tailoring, design, and garment services who have been earning their living through these professions.
“They are expected to learn and train others. It, therefore a train-the-trainer exercise. The start-up equipment to be distributed to participants at the end of this training and the ones yet to arrive are adequate to carry out multifunctional services and compete favourably with the foreign service providers.
“Tailoring and fashion design as a vocation in Katsina State or its environs had evolved over time and still evolving because it is a peculiar subsector which finds relevance in meeting the people’s cultural needs and also closely knitted with the day-to-day human affairs and tradition.
“To the rich and to the poor next to food is clothing even before shelter. To the privileged members of society, there is an unquenchable taste for fashion and ostentatious outings either during ceremonies or other functions.
“Fashion has distinct segments for men and for women and when compared to other trades and skills already acquired by Nigerian youths, tailoring, and fashion design vocation is among the top earning and profitable occupations.
“The missing link is essentially the application of modern tools, techniques, creativity, and capacity to deploy modern design techniques and use of advanced sewing machines and other working tools for growth and expansion.
“It is important to note however that the business is both lucrative and volatile; it is about style, trend, and human taste that are constantly changing into whatever is trending.
“Any tailor that is not updating his/her knowledge with modern system of patterns, trends, embroidery, and fashion will also be thrown out of the business.
“Of recent, some young men and women of northern Nigeria are outsourcing tailoring and garment making from Senegal, Mauritania, Ivory Coast, and even the United Arab Emirates due to non-utilization of appropriate new and emerging tools in the occupation in Nigeria.
“NASENI under the chairmanship of President Muhammadu Buhari will not allow further loss of gainful employment of Nigerians in this occupation.
“We urge the participants to utilize judiciously and guard jealously the
expensive machines to be given to them at the end of this training as their start-up packs,” he added.
The mandate of the NASENI includes nurturing an appropriate and dynamic science and engineering infrastructure base for achieving home-initiated and home-sustained industrialization for Nigeria.
In his remarks, the chairman of the occasion and member representing Zango/Baure Constituency at the National Assembly, Hon. Nasiru Sani Zangon Daura, advised the participants to take full advantage of the training in order to take good care of their families and become self-reliant thereby generating more employment opportunities for the incoming generation.
He also thanked President Buhari and NASENI for the priority and opportunity given Daura people.
The Chief Host and Governor of Katsina State, Aminu Masari, represented by the State Commissioner of Land and Survey, TP Usman Nadada, announced that the current state administration has since inception in 2015 been focusing on human capital development almost 60 percent with a lot of skills projects ongoing.
He also called on the beneficiaries to maintain the equipment given to them and not to sell them out for their good.
One of the beneficiaries, Jamilu Lawal Dan Ghana, who claimed to have been in the tailoring business for close to three decades, believed that the equipment will positively impact his business. (Channels)