A Professor of Development Economics and former Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, University of Ibadan, Professor Abiodun Bankole, has described the perception that Nigerian graduates are unemployable as a product of the failings of employers.
Professor Bankole said the abdication of responsibility by employers in contemporary society had made many employers think less of Nigerian graduates.
Speaking in Ibadan at the graduation and send-off event organised for the 2025 cohort of the Next Gen Ideate (NGI) programme of the Forerunners Welfare Foundation (FWF), the former Head of the Department of Economics questioned why employers were trying to shy away from their hitherto responsibilities of training fresh graduates, only to declare them unfit for job placement.
‘The onus is on businesses to train fresh graduates before you give them assignments in your companies.
‘Maybe what they are saying now is that those graduates don’t have that level of training for specific job status despite their certification. But they should say it if that is their problem because ‘no employability’ means you can’t be employed at all,’ Professor Bankole said.
He noted that ‘the condemned Nigerian-trained graduates do excel when they travel overseas.’
‘That is where I see their (companies’) failure, trying to cover their failings,’ he said.
While charging the students to be industry-ready so that they could quickly adapt to the new life that post-university life has for them, Professor Bankole emphasised the need for students to ‘have an internship even before graduating and stop the idea of wanting to start from the top.’
The event was attended by the General Secretary of the Muslim Community of Oyo State, Professor Taofeeq Yekinni, and the National President of the University of Ibadan Muslim Graduates’ Association, Alhajj Imran Abulmojeed.
In his welcome address, the chairman of FWF, Dr Ibrahim Hammed, said the second cohort of the programme graduated 22 exceptional young individuals who completed the training.
‘They did not just pass; they survived a true trial by fire; they satisfied the unyielding criteria of resilience, accountability, and diligence against all odds,’ he added.
In their separate keynote lectures, a legal practitioner, Mr Abdurrahman Abiola Ahmad, and an engineer, Ibrahim Ande, charged the youths to explore the pervasive opportunities that present themselves in the contemporary world.
Ahmad emphasised the need to build a career through cordial relationships with family, friends and colleagues, encouraging the graduates to explore opportunities even when challenging.
Ande enumerated some soft skills needed in the industry, including the ability to manage pressure and crises, and good communication.
Earlier in his remarks, the Chief Moderator of the Forerunners Welfare Foundation, Mr Muyiwa Tijani, said the organisation was established by some Muslim graduates of the University of Ibadan, primarily to help less-privileged and younger generations of UI students and alumni.