Segun Awofadeji
The Director General of the National Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR), Mr. Nura Sani Kangiwa, has expressed confidence that acquisition of vocational skills on the Nigerian arts and crafts industry would accelerate the fight against unemployment and poverty in the country.
Kangiwa stated this yesterday when he declared open a “Skill Acquisition and Empowerment of Women in Arts and Crafts’” training session that was organised by the North-east campus of the institute in Bauchi.
He pointed out that the fight against poverty in Nigeria is every ones’ responsibility and the NIHOTOUR, as a skill and vocational training centre, would continue to play its part in impacting the Nigerian populace with knowledge based skills that would offer them employment and financial earning opportunities in line with the federal government’s agenda to fight poverty in the country.
Kangiwa, who was represented by the Coordinator and Head of the North East Zonal Campus of the NIHOTOUR, Mr. Samuel Tanko Ibrahim, called on participants to use the opportunity offered them by the training to make a change for good in their lives, noting that such opportunities are rare to come by.
In his remarks at the occasion, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Bauchi State, Mr. Ali Babayo, said that Nigerians should look inward to be economically and gainfully employed in the face of financial downturn in the country.
The Coordinator of the Bauchi Zonal Office of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Mr. Nelson Lucas, noted that tourism is a multi faceted industry that offered ample opportunities for interested key players to get trained and be gainfully employed in various trades, including arts and crafts.
Lucas noted that the skill acquisition training program was timely and called on the trainees to make the best use of the knowledge they would acquire at the end of the training session for better livelihood.
In his goodwill message, the Head of Department of Travel and Tourism of the Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi, Mr. Alamai Murtala, said knowledge based skill acquisition remained the surest way to excel in any given trade or profession.
Murtala noted that participants at the skill acquisition training program should count themselves lucky and called on them to make judicious use of the skills they would acquire for their socio-economic benefits.
