Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of Kano State and the former Minister of Communications, Isa Ali-Pantami, on Saturday traced the deepening socio-economic challenges of the north to a widening skills gap and the collapse of industries that once powered the regionโs economy.
They spoke at the maiden North-West Stakeholdersโ Development Summit organised by the Joint Senate and House Committees on the North-West Development Commission (NWDC) at the Umaru Musa YarโAdua Conference Centre, Kaduna.
The speakers agreed that insecurity, poverty, youth unemployment, and the alarming out-of-school children crisis were symptoms of deeper structural failures rooted in poor education outcomes and the disappearance of industrial capacity across the region.
Mr Yusuf, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Umar Ibrahim, narrowed the regionโs crisis to what he called the โtwin and intertwined challengesโ of insecurity and systemic decay in the education sector.
He lamented that banditry, kidnappings, and cattle rustling had displaced communities, destroyed farmlands and markets, and deepened multidimensional poverty across the sub-region.
Mr Yusuf said overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated infrastructure, a shortage of teachers, and a lack of learning materials had crippled the capacity of public schools to transform the youths into productive human capital.
He proposed the creation of a sub-regional education transformation body under the NWDC to coordinate restoration, innovation, and improved education delivery across the North-West states.
The governor also advocated a subregional security collaboration framework to enhance cross-border intelligence sharing and support rehabilitation of displaced persons.
Mr Pantami, in his intervention, linked the regionโs present difficulties to the collapse of industries that flourished in Kaduna, Kano, and other northern cities in the 1970s and 1980s.
He observed that Northern Nigeria had shifted from being a producer region to largely a consumer one, warning that the trend threatens the future if not urgently reversed.
Mr Pantami blamed the growing skills gap on poor curriculum alignment and the absence of practical, vocational, and technical training that matches modern economic demands.
He recommended the adoption of a โdual educationโ model, where classroom learning is combined with hands-on vocational training, similar to systems used in Germany and Switzerland.
The former minister also highlighted the out-of-school children crisis, noting that a significant proportion of affected kids are in Northern Nigeria, posing long-term risks to stability and competitiveness.
The speakers agreed that addressing insecurity without fixing education and skills development, or improving schools without securing communities, would produce limited results.
As the summit opened, participants expressed hope that the NWDC would provide a practical platform to integrate efforts across states and revive the North-Westโs lost industrial strength through coordinated development.
(NAN)
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