Ogun State Governor, Mr Ibikunle Amosun has stressed the need for more emphasis on vocational and technical skills acquisition in the country, saying no nation can develop without having necessary technical expertise.

Amosun said this when he hosted a delegation from the Adeola Odutola Foundation led by elder statesman, Prof. Akin Mabogunje in his Oke-Mosan Office, Abeokuta.

The governor said the absence of middle-level technical training was the cause of the skill gap plaguing the nation, recalling that wood work and metal work as well as applied electricity, among other crafts, were given priority in the past in schools across the country.

“Returning to the era of celebrating craftsmanship is the way to go for our nation”, he said, noting that privatization of the energy sector called for the need to develop the workforce that would be its engine room.

He said his government has been equipping the various eight technical and vocational centres in different parts of the state to enhance learning.

‘’It is a pity that nowadays we have to run to Togo and Republic of Benin to get masons, electric welders and the likes. As a government, we know that is the way to go. We are even putting more emphasis on the informal sector which is huge.

‘’Now that the energy sector is being liberalized, nobody is thinking about the workforce that we would need to support that huge initiative. It will go the way of telecommunication such that we may need some technical expertise at the top, even some of our people are very experienced but we are deficient in the area of those support base which is huge in number, we don’t have”, Amosun said.

Commending the Odutola Foundation for thinking out of the box on its skill acquisition drive, the state’s helmsman noted that ‘’the on-going model colleges, when completed, would offer modern technical education.”

He assured that the government would continue to encourage young graduates on technical education.

Mabogunje said the nation as a whole had lost interest in vocational training, maintaining that the Adeola Odutola Foundation would be ready to partner with the state government and the private sector in training manpower that would salvage the technical aspect of the economy.