Inside Kano’s neglected youth centre

Owed several millions by state governments, this centre has almost gone to sleep, but it has capacity to turn around the lives of 6 million unemployed youth in the North West It was created out of a desire to mobilize and re-direct the thinking of the largest segment of the Nigerian youth to acquire the […]

Owed several millions by state governments, this centre has almost gone to sleep, but it has capacity to turn around the lives of 6 million unemployed youth in the North West

It was created out of a desire to mobilize and re-direct the thinking of the largest segment of the Nigerian youth to acquire the necessary skills that will enable them become self-reliant and useful members of the society, against the hitherto prevailing situation where they  are becoming agents of violence, political thugs, area boys, yandaba and victims of drug abuse.
The Institute for Youth Development, popularly known as Sani Abacha Centre in Kano is apparently the biggest and most celebrated youth development Centre in the Northern part of Nigeria. Within 30 years of its establishment it has graduated over 50,000 youths from different  parts of Nigeria and neighbouring countries like Niger Republic, Benin and Chad, in various fields of technical, vocational, agriculture, remedial and computer programmes. Its founders are: Alhaji Abubakar Isa, Alhaji Aliyu Rumfa, Malam Umar Sulenkuka, Alhaji Rabiu Bako who is presently serving as Commissioner for Commerce in Kano State, and others.
It was obvious that founders of the institute had noble ideas for setting up the place- going by its  magnificent state of the art structures, conducive surroundings and the quality of the courses at the Centre, but their dreams and vision may not take long to die, except government and its relevant agencies quickly intervene to save their lofty idea of massive youth empowerment through vocational, technical, agriculture, remedial and computer programmes, which was the primary essence and objective of the Centre from becoming an illusion. 
When our correspondent visited the famous Abacha Youth Centre it was shocking to find that despite it immense contributions to the development of youths in the country through its numerous training programmes to promote skilled and semi-skilled manpower, most of its teaching equipment have become obsolete. Its furniture, classrooms, hostels and other teaching materials were in a sorry-state due to lack of funding, support and a backlog of debts by governments and their youth empowerment agencies.
Apart from the fact that many of the state governments in the North do not take advantage of the opportunity that the Centre offers to train their youths in various skills that are available at Sani Abacha Centre, the few ones that took their youths there for training, are yet to redeem what they owe  the institute in the last four to six years now.  It was gathered that Kano State government alone owes the Centre more than N40 million for the past four months now. 
Speaking to our correspondent on the mission of the institute, its Director of Commercials, Mallam Abdulsamiu Musa said it was initially the Kano State Youth Movement. “When we decided to have branches in other states and acquired a National Certificate by registering with the Corporate Affairs Commission it became Youth Movement of Nigeria. “Initially, we were getting jobs for youths from the ministries, agencies and other corporate bodies. The youths would come to us and we would write introductory letters for them to take to the work places and they would be offered jobs. With time we realized those jobs were not forthcoming, so we decided that we should have a youth training Centre. For this to become a reality we mobilized philanthropists, corporate bodies and government officials from far and near, Lagos, Abuja and where ever we could get funding. We took the model to the Federal Ministries and the agencies to get them to come to our aid, but none of them responded. We were lucky the late Gen Sani Abacha was the Minister of Defence then, and he bought the idea. The then  governor of Kano State, Architect Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya linked us with the Kumbutso local government Chairman to acquire the land on which the institute was built today.  Abacha was the Chief launcher and it was at the launching that we decided to name the place after him, based on his contributions to make the establishment of the youth development institute a reality.”
He maintained that the Centre within 30 years of its establishment has realized many of its objectives. “The Centre has trained well over 50,000 Nigerian youths in various fields of human endeavours. When the computer age came about the staff of Ministry of Finance were  not computer literate and most of the staff were sent here for training. The Kano state government at a time was bringing its youth here for training. It even directed its 44 local governments to send their youths here for training in various skills. But the problem is when the state governments send their youths here for training, for us to get them to pay has always been a problem. It may take up to four or six years to pay us for the training we offered to their youths. Our training is practical intensive because most of them have not been to school at all, and others might as well be half-baked. It was not easy doing it as a conventional school. We have to channel our energy in the practical aspect of what we want to train them to be.

We don’t get any grant from anywhere not even the government. The Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports in the past used to give us an annual grant of N50,000, but it was too meager.  They stopped giving it to us over 10 years ago, but we were not deterred because we have a mission. We know Nigerians youth wants to engage in useful vocations. What they lack is sponsorship to acquire skills. Because of poverty some of them could not finish school, some could not advance their lives to what they want to become. We want to cushion these areas, so that they could have a skill to be useful to themselves and to the society.
“For over four years now Kano State government has not brought any of its youths here for training, and it is owing the Centre over N40 million. Even though there was a MoU between the state government and this Centre, they have not been  complying. They came here last year that they wanted to turn this place to a technical school. They were thinking Sani Abacha Centre belongs to the government. The governor then sent officials from the Ministry of Education without involving the Management of this institute. They just came here but when our lawyer said okay if they wanted to take it they must compensate us, they turned away and instead invited us for a Memorandum of Understanding. It was agreed that after every three months the state government would send trainees that would take all sessions of our programmes, but up till this time no one trainee has been sent here from Kano state government for the past four years. This Centre is in Kano and we have been having youth empowerment programmes, why is it difficult for Kano State government to take care of its youth empowerment? This is one of the leading Centres in the country.

Before, Katsina State used to send its youths here for training under the former President, late Umar Yar’adua. When he was governor he directed all the local governments in the state to this Centre, and when he became president he sent some of his Ministers here. He even included us in his Amnesty Programme because he wanted the Sani Abacha Centre to train some of the Niger Delta youths. They came to inspect our facilities and even budgeted  huge amounts  of money to renovate the Centre to suit the interest of the militants, but unfortunately after his death things changed.” 
The institute’s Public Relations Officer, Mallam Yahaya Shu’aibu Ungogo said the course fee at the Centre was meager. For government sponsorship he said the Centre charges N35,000 and N15,000 respectively for individuals, for the period of three to six months duration, including accommodation. “The training programme required huge consumable materials and we must pay our staff. Most of the state governments are not serious on the issue of training and empowering their youths. They are spending little out of what is meant for the youth empowerment programmes. We have over six million unemployed youths in the North-West alone, based on the statistics available to us. Yet we can stay here up to six months without any training for the youth. The international donor agencies have been coming with grants, but anytime they come they arrive  with their own programme which does not tally with our own, and they want us to follow it. This is the problem we have been having with them. We have been involved in several committees and policy reviews carried out in this country.
“Look at our local governments, they spent over 10 million naira buying motorcycles for people, yet they could not afford to train their youth. The 10 million naira will train over 500 youths. At a time we had to discharge 67 members of our staff, because we couldn’t pay their salaries. We pay our staff from what we get from our commercials. We have a theatre centre, a swimming pool and an events centre. People hire  them for marriage ceremonies and other festivities. These are where we get what we use to pay our staff. There are times we couldn’t even pay salaries for up to six months. When some individuals come to sponsor youths in any of the skills, we reduce our charges from N35,000 per individual to N15000 for them. If governments are serious they may not necessarily fund us, but bring in both the schooled and unschooled youths for us to train. No one needs  to go to school before he can be trained here. All they need to do is to choose a course that will make them self-reliant. We can accommodate over 2,000 youths at once in our facilities.”

He stated that the institute last year under the industrial training fund programme by the Ministry of industry, trained 1,120 at the same time for the federal government. “We hosted 500 youths from Yobe State government, along with another 520 youths from the Kano State government. We sent a Memorandum of Understanding to Kano state government to train 8,000 of its youths within 4 years of this administration. If government agencies can be hosting programmes for the youths it might not be enough to take care of all the challenges we have in this country considering our population, but it would go a long way in  addressing them. Right now, only Yobe State government in the North is seen as being serious in addressing the issue of youth unemployment and empowerment based on its efforts so far in training them. Last month we graduated 2,000 of its youths here, and it spent N130 million for their settlements. Each trainee from the state got N200,000 for their equipment. The governor is proposing to send another batch of 500 youths here, probably by next month to be trained.”
The institutes  Director of Administration, Mallam Aliyu Rumfa observed that women were never excluded from the youth training courses at the institute. “We have women hostels here as well. There is a training programme this October for 1,000 youths and 200 of them are women. It was given to another institution that will just give us the hosting rights and our staff and facilities are going to be used for some charges that are meager. This is what they normally do. There are some syllabuses that are not included in the National Technical Board syllabus, but we have them here. We designed a curriculum and they included it in their syllabus as a modular programme. There is no standard curriculum for the repairs of GSM and motorcycles, it was from here that we designed them. We sat down with some experts and came up with the curriculums. Most of the junior staff of the media houses in Kano was trained here. We have sent a proposal directly to the president. This is the first time we are doing that, because we have been wasting our time sending them through the ministries and agencies. We believe the president has received it and we are waiting for response from the federal government.”
Its Director of Education, Mallam Umar Sulenkuka maintained that the institute was able to achieve this much because it collaborated with the universities. “For instance, the Faculty of Adult Education of Bayero University is giving us a helping hand. Some of the professors have been coming to the Centre when there is demand for their assistance. The Federal Ministry of Youths, its state counterparts and the NYSC have also been  supporting us to achieve this much. The Industrial Training Fund (ITF) is responsible for the training of most of our staff. For our obsolete equipment we have set up a committee to look into this, and they have submitted their report on the way forward. All that we need  is funding.”