Yusuf Waheed lost a handful of businesses and clients between August and September 2016. His workshop, located opposite Nigerian Army Cantonment in Ojo, Lagos, was under lock and key in those two months because he was away for a contract job in Owerri, Imo State, and had no ‘boy’ to man the workshop.
“I get a lot of these outside jobs, and each time I travel I have to lock my workshop for several weeks and sometimes months because I have no ‘boy’ to stay there. I lose a lot of money and customers as a result,” says Waheed, sitting languidly on a wooden bench in front of Yusuf Watec Company, his electrical engineering/refrigerator repairs outfit.
Where he apprenticed in Kaduna about 18 years ago, a midsized electrical engineering firm the boss of which had some connection with either the state or Federal Government, Waheed says there were about 32 apprentices on ground when he arrived, and up to five or six more boys were brought in after him, bringing the total number to about 38. Yet today he can’t find one apprentice.
“I’ve been looking out for apprentices but they are hard to come by. Some of the ones I got in the past ran away along the line. Many young people of today are looking for quick money. They prefer to go to construction sites where they work for daily pay, and then they use the money to go and play ‘Baba Ijebu’. I don’t know what is wrong with this generation,” he says.
Like Waheed, many artisans in Lagos and across Nigeria – from auto mechanics to carpenters, shoemakers, bricklayers, masons, welders, tailors, etc – are lamenting the scarcity of young males who are willing and ready to undergo apprenticeship. Of course, it has long been established that artisans (masons, bricklayers, plumbers, etc) from neighbouring Togo, Republic of Benin and Ghana now dominate construction sites in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, while many Nigerian young men cram themselves into cybercafés and betting stores in search of quick money. Some even negotiate to sell some of their vital organs.
Writing on the issue in a recent article, Bamidele Olateju, a columnist and member of Premium Times Editorial Board, says: “I wanted a painter and they brought me a Chinese. I wanted a ‘tiler’, they brought me a Togolese. On my way out of my estate, all I see are armies of jobless youths. They are always on the move, milling around with rucksacks on their backs, ears plugged with earphones, sagged pants with lengthy belts, going nowhere. They are looking to hammer. If you no hammer nko? Will you be carrying those things on your back as a 40-year-old when life has hammered you?”
Monday Olawale, director, Moscow Iron Furniture, who says the present scenario is negatively affecting artisans as they lose business and clients virtually every time they step out of their workshop, regrets that today’s young men are lazy and impatient and yet want to count in millions.
“They do not want to learn any skill, all they want is money. Even when someone encourages them and they eventually agree to learn a skill, they soon complain that it is too tough for them. They begin to gradually withdraw and when you ask them, they keep telling cock and bull stories. And sooner or later you see them roaming the streets again, idling away,” says Olawale.
Unlike the time he learnt his iron works several years ago when nobody begged him and he had to pay so much, Olawale says if you are lucky to have an apprentice these days and you want him to stay, you need to encourage him a lot.
“You have to give them something like feeding money from time to time as ‘oga’. If you don’t, they’ll begin to steal your things; you’ll just come every day and find out that some tools are missing. Or they’ll begin to tell you stories, headache today, runny stomach tomorrow, or they’ll tell you the work is too difficult and that they cannot cope,” he adds.
Even the little token apprentices are asked to pay these days, Olawale says, is to extract some level of seriousness from them and ensure they do not take things for granted.
“If you don’t charge them, they may say, ‘after all they did not collect anything from me’, and they won’t show seriousness. But when you charge them, they will be serious; even their parents, because they won’t want their money to waste just like that. That’s why at times we collect money,” he says.
Waheed’s experience, however, has shown that it takes more than encouragement to get and keep apprentices these days. In spite of his best efforts, the ‘boys’ simply don’t want to stay.
“Honestly I don’t know why the boys are not staying. All the boys that had stayed with me I tried to treat them well just to see whether they would stay. I always gave them money whenever we did a job; whenever we went out to eat, I made sure they ate whatever they wanted, and that they ate their meals with meat, something my boss never did for me when I was an apprentice,” says Waheed in an apparently despondent tone.
“Ordinarily, the apprentices are supposed to pay some money, but as my way of encouraging them, I don’t collect anything from them initially, but along the line when they start getting jobs and making money, I ask them to pay a token. Yet they all ran away. Some of them even stole from me, sometimes stealing even gadgets belonging to customers,” he says.
Simon Peter Uche, director of Storm Climax Cobblers, suffers the same fate. He needs at least six young men as apprentices but currently has only one. His effort to get apprentices in recent times has also been frustrated as most young men are simply unwilling.
“Over the years I used to have able-bodied young men who were ready to learn this trade, but in recent times they have become very scarce because young people today want quick money that they did not work for, and they want it fast,” Uche says while sewing away on a sole at his workshop on Omila Road, Ojo.
“Most of the secondary school leavers I meet are not interested; they’d rather go and do ‘Yahoo Yahoo’ or play 9jabet, Baba Ijebu, and so on. They don’t want to sit down; they just want money fast at all cost. Even some of them who manage to sign apprenticeship forms, you see them for maybe one or two months, and the next thing they start complaining that it’s difficult for them and that they want to do something else to make money,” he says.
On why young men are increasingly unwilling to take on apprenticeship, Uche thinks it has to do with a society that has thrown values to the winds; where hard work has become a vice and indolence a virtue; a society that adores money and celebrates wealth without questioning its source.
In such a society, many young men believe that spending a number of years as apprentice amounts to waste of time. They want it quick. For instance, it takes an average of two years to learn electrical engineering/refrigerator repairs, about four years to become a master in iron works and furniture, and between two and three years to perfect in leather works, according to my informants. It, however, also depends on how sharp the apprentice is.
“Cobbling is deep. If you want to go into shoes, bags and other leather works, it takes about three years, but if you want to do only sandals and pams, maybe between a year and a half,” says Uche.
Taofeek Oni, a vulcaniser, tells BDSUNDAY that today’s youths are not just interested in such line of venture.
“Sometimes I wonder what the future of Nigeria will look like. I see a situation where there will be nobody to do the work of vulcanising or even mechanic in the future; this is because there are no new entrants into such areas,” Oni says.
“You hardly see youths as apprentice in mechanic or vulcanising workshops. Today’s youths prefer being commercial motorcyclists to sitting down to acquiring skills that could feed them through life. I think it is very dangerous for Nigeria,” he adds.
CHUKS OLUIGBO
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