By Isa Abdul, Abuja

18,510 Nigerian trained artisans under the first batch of the Renewed Hope Vocational and Skills Training Programme, an initiative of the National Social Investment Programme Agency, have received the Federal Government starter packs. This is aimed at equipping them with the tools needed to start businesses and become self-reliant.

The beneficiaries, selected from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, underwent two weeks of intensive vocational training at more than 230 accredited centres across the country.

At the closing ceremony of the programme in Abuja on Wednesday, the National Programme Manager, N-POWER, Dr Nsikak Okon, said that the Federal Government deployed GPS technology and a dedicated monitoring system to track beneficiaries to ensure that the starter packs were properly utilised.

The agency had created a portal to enroll and monitor beneficiaries’ locations, he said. A call centre had also been established, he added, to provide support and address challenges. In his words:

“We are using technology. We have already opened a portal where all the beneficiaries, the participants are enrolled inside that portal. We know their locations, we track them. It is a system that we have put mechanically that we have to know exactly the location that you are.

“We are using GPS to ensure that every participant we track and ensure that you have been very useful to the programme. We have a Call Centre. These Call Centre Agents are the ones that will be interacting with the beneficiaries to ensure that they don’t have challenges. If there is any challenge that they have witnessed along the line, then we have put in a mechanism to mitigate such challenges.”

The monitoring mechanism is intended to promote transparency in the distribution of the starter packs, adding that beneficiaries could access details of the equipment assigned to them through the portal.

“Nothing is hidden, everything is in the portal. We have opened the portal and you see what is in your starter pack. If you have any deficiency or any defects in the starter pack, you call our call centre.

“We have sent messages to all the 230 training centres. If there is an issue with the starter pack that we have given to the beneficiaries, reach out back to us so that we now know how to work against such issues,” he said.

The beneficiaries were trained in a range of vocational trades, including automobile technology, agricultural technology, baking and confectionery, carpentry and furniture making, cooking and catering, electrical installation, housekeeping and hospitality, jewellery and bead making, masonry, plumbing, welding and fabrication.

Fashion design and sewing, grinding machine operation, vulcanising and tyre services, were also involved.

Each trainee received N60,000 as transport allowance for the two-week training period, Okon said.

“Government has been so magnanimous looking at the transport. They have been so overstretched for these two weeks because they have to be in the training centre from morning till about 5 o’clock. The transport N60,000 transport fare is meant to enable them to move from the training centre to their own destinations,” he added.

The NSIPA National Coordinator and Chief Executive Officer, Badamasi Lawal, described the completion of the training as a major step towards restoring productive assets and expanding economic opportunities for vulnerable Nigerians.

According to Lawal, much of the equipment being distributed had being in storage for more than five years before the Federal Government decided to recover, refurbish and deploy them:

“These items have been lying for over five years. But today, over 18,000 Nigerians across 36 states, and FCT Abuja have been well trained for two weeks.

“We have beneficiaries who are giving these items for job creation. And again, this is in line with the President’s agenda. It fosters and helps social intervention, which are meant for this essential development.”

He noted that the training went beyond technical skills, as beneficiaries were also exposed to entrepreneurship development, financial literacy, business planning, customer relations and enterprise management.

He maintained that the broader objective was to ensure that beneficiaries not only acquire vocational skills but also developed the capacity to establish and sustain their viable businesses.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr Bernard Doro, said the programme was part of the Federal Government’s strategy to move beneficiaries from temporary relief to sustainable livelihoods.

Doro said the initiative represents a shift in the government’s approach to poverty reduction:

“This is a deliberate path to move people beyond short-term relief and invest in people’s productive capacity so that citizens can live prosperous, dignified lives on their own terms. This ceremony sits at the heart of a bigger shift in our ministry’s work.

“We call it the One Humanitarian, One Poverty Response system. Our guiding philosophy is simple: from palliatives to pathways.

“Under One Humanitarian, One Poverty Response system, every Nigerian identified on our National Social Register sits on a pathway from registration to skills acquisition, to productive assets to enterprise and ultimately to graduation out of poverty altogether. What you are receiving today is that pathway made feasible, training completed, tools in hand, and business ahead of you.”

The minister welcomed the decision to recover, refurbish and give out the vocational equipment that had remained unused in warehouses for years.

“I must also commend the Federal Government’s decision to recover, refurbish, and deploy vocational equipment that have sat warehoused across the country for years. Rather than let public assets decay, we restore them and place them in the hands of Nigerians who will use them to build businesses and create jobs.

“And also, to ensure sound stewardship of public resources, working also for our people, you have been trained in tricks that respond directly to what our local economies need,” he stated.

Doro congratulated the beneficiaries and urged them to make productive use of the skills and equipment provided to them.

He noted that the programme gave more than certificates, but practical skills and equipment that could immediately support income-generating activities.

“You are not leaving with a certificate alone, you are leaving with a trade in your hands and the equipment to put it to work immediately.

“On behalf of the Federal Government, every beneficiary in this hall and those joining us from across the country, your discipline in completing this training, often under real hardship, tells us something important: Nigeria’s greatest resource is not beneath our soil. It is in our people,” he added.

The Renewed Hope Vocational and Skills Training Programme forms part of the federal government’s broader social investment and poverty-reduction efforts, with emphasis on skills development, access to productive assets and support for small-scale enterprise.