Katsina State Governor Aminu Bello Masari has told job seekers in the state to be humble and return to the trades their parents did to sponsor them to school.
While encouraging graduates in the states not to be dependent on white-collar jobs, Masari said they must not abandon family businesses, community businesses.
According to him, the government does not have the capability to employ everyone.
Naija News reports that Governor Masari made this statement while declaring open, a summit organised to discuss the future of the State titles: The Save Katsina Group Summit.
Masari said it is not proper to be educated and still be in bondage.
According to him, the purpose of acquiring knowledge is to liberate oneself and by extension the society at large.
The governor told the youths in the State to strive towards being more innovative and enterprising by putting their brains to work rather than focusing on paid employment.
Using developed nations as his reference, Masari said those family and community trades that were overlooked by the youths are what made other so-called developed countries of the world today, great.
He said: “The benefits of the education you have is to free you. An education that does not free the individual from bondage is not an education.
“We don’t go to school because we must be given a paid employment. An educated sugarcane seller will do better than an uneducated sugarcane seller.
“Young men and women, those trades that your fathers and mothers did to educate you, improve on them. Don’t feel that you are above them now. That is part of the problem that is creating unemployment
“Your father is a blacksmith. You go through education through his labour, then you look down on that trade instead of thinking: how do I make it better? How do I improve on this trade?
“History abounds that these small and medium enterprises skills are what made nations great; especially Germany. Don’t abandon family businesses, don’t abandon community businesses and start looking for white-collar jobs. How many white-collar jobs do we have?
“The entire workforce in Katsina State, local government, state government and everywhere is not more than a 100,000 and we are consuming in salaries and allowances alone; consuming 5 billion out of those 6 billion at most the state will get.
“How can we progress? Where is the job for everybody? There is an opportunity for everybody but there are no jobs for everybody,” Governor Masari said.
On her part, the State Coordinator of the Coalition for Save Katsinsa Group, Hamza Umar Saulawa, said the motive of the group which comprises non-governmental organisations in the state, is to assemble all the young minds in the State to forge a great future for the people of the state considering the recent challenges threatening the good legacies the State was known for.
On their expectations at the end of the summit, Saulawa said their earnest prayer is to see that the government faithfully implements the recommendations generated from the summit as it will go a long way in reducing to the barest minimum the challenges facing not just the youths but the State as a whole.
This article was originally published on Naija News