EACH time the government officials speak, they exhibit their distance from the realities Nigerians face. They are not in touch with the people who they claim to represent and on whose behalf they supposedly act.

How will the Federal Government be stressing the importance of vocational skills when government policies have placed them on the extinction list? Which government schools provide vocational training when technical schools are being closed or the ones that are existing are poorly equipped?

Have government over the years not made vocational training appear as a department reserved for society’s wretched ones? Which industries and allied activities require their services?

When therefore the Minister of State, Commerce and Industry, Ms Josephine Tapgun says, “No nation can make progress without an adequate and functional skilled workforce”, she was being as bland as government officials have been over the years. Nigeria has skilled workers, but where will they work?

“The  Federal Government has come to this realisation that technical and vocational skills acquisition is critical to the attainment of Vision 2020. Acquisition of  technical and vocational skills constitutes the  platform on which  the drive for employment generation and poverty reduction can be established.

“Therefore, it is the belief of the Federal Government that the economy of Nigeria will witness tremendous growth if we give appropriate attention on the acquisition of technical and vocational skills, particularly for the youths who constitute a significant proportion of the populace. The Federal government will support the generation of a pool of the nation’s skilled workforce sufficient to meet the needs of the nation’s economy,” she said.

Is it possible that Mrs. Tapgun and her speechwriters do not see the connection between economic growth and poor electricity supply, which successive governments have addressed deceitfully?

What worsens the situation is that Mrs. Tapgun’s speech was at an event of the Industrial Training Fund, ITF, a body the Federal Government created to fund training of middle level manpower when industrialisation was one of the nation’s dreams.

Last week, Vice President Namadi Sambo was at a textile factory in Kaduna, praising the efforts of government in reviving the factory that will employ about 2,000 people with a loan from the Bank of Industry.

He forgot the previous week government lifted the ban on importation of textile, meaning the factory will soon die. If importation does not kill it, poor electricity supply and associated costs will soon drive it out of business. It will not be able to repay the loan.

Also at the ITF event, the Senate Committee Chairman on Industry, Senator Kamarudeen Adekunle Adedibu said, “The development of any country is dependent on the availability of the appropriate mix and quality of human resource such as engineers, technicians and artisans. The actualisation of the Vision20:20-20 is predicated on the existence of a productive and sustainable human resource base”.

The consistent recourse to talking about Vision 20:20:20 at every occasion mirrors government efforts at postponing challenges the country faces till then. There is a poor understanding of the centrality of electricity to the economy. Speechifying cannot take the place of electricity or any serious activity.