Alhaji Abba Muhammad is the pioneer Commissioner of the Ministry of Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development, a ministry created by Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto for job creation in the 23 local government areas in the state. Muhammad, a quintessential public servant, who has traversed both the public and private sector, having started his working career as a banker before joining the Sokoto State Civil Service, and rose to become unarguably the longest serving Deputy Accountant General in the history of Sokoto State. In this interview, he speaks about the challenges of hitting the ground running to ensure that he delivers on the marching orders of Governor Aliyu Sokoto to provide jobs for the youth and his strategy to achieve the laudable goals.

Mr. Commissioner from your intimidating CV you shouldn’t have any problem midwifing the ministry and per chance if there are any challenges they shouldn’t be insurmountable?

I absolutely agree with you that I am coming with a wealth of experience from both the public and private sectors. So, on that note I have what it takes to make a success of the assignment. And I am grateful to God that the most important factor which you obviously haven’t taken into account and which in my opinion is very critical is the unflinching support of the governor who in his wisdom and desire to equip the youths, the poor and vulnerable with the tools for a better future established the ministry.

Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto has never hidden his desire to give the youths a future. He doesn’t believe in hands out. Again, while every ministry is clearly important to him, some are obviously dear to his heart in line with his 9- Point Smart Agenda. For instance, education which in the last two budgets had more than 25 per cent of the budget, health, agriculture because of its capacity to provide food and raw materials for industries and employment for the people have received serious attention.

There is nobody in the state that is surprised that the governor who was once the Commissioner of Social Welfare under our father and leader Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, created this ministry. He knows how important this ministry is which is why he wasted no time creating it. And with him solidly behind me, I don’t envisage any problem delivering on the mandate of the ministry.

The governor was once a Commissioner of Social Welfare?

He wasn’t just a commissioner, but he was a very impactful one. What he has done is to create the new Ministry by merging the departments of Social Welfare and Humanitarian Affairs, with the objective of addressing in a holistic manner the problems of poverty and unemployment amongst the youths who for one reason or another couldn’t complete their education. For the governor, every segment of the society being citizens of the state must benefit from governance.

Time is not your friend with the huge unemployment crisis coupled with the fact that the governor seems in a hurry to address the problem. So, where are you now, because the governor expects you to hit the ground running?

There are enormous challenges that we are faced with, because the Aminu Tambuwal administration, abandoned the programme which was initiated by Senator Wamakko, and which was up and running. So, as it were, we are starting from scratch. We are working closely with the Head of Service to second staff to the ministry. So far, a Permanent Secretary, three directors have been posted to the Ministry. I am optimistic that in no time the ministry would be fully operational. We have also been allocated office space.

Immediately after my swearing in as commissioner, the governor directed me to submit an inventory of the various training facilities in the state to enable him to make swift decisions. And we have reported back to him, and I know he is working on it. Very soon, the impact of this Ministry will be felt by the good people of Sokoto State, Isha Allah.

I will keep going back to the grave damage by the previous administration, because their actions and inactions set the state back by more than 20 years. I consider their actions wicked especially with the challenge of funding due to the economic downturn- because of their actions the governor would be forced to source for funds to replace the various equipment that have been vandalized rather than deploying the scarce resources on other areas. But the governor being a prudent manager of resources has assured me of his total support because it’s a project that is very dear to his heart. Naturally there are other challenges, but like you said they are not insurmountable. It’s just that we need time.

What’s the specific mandate of your Ministry?

It’s important to stress that the governor has made significant progress in tackling poverty and in creating jobs. So, the mandate of the Ministry is to create jobs by helping our people to acquire the necessary training. He wants to break the cycle of poverty. There are teaming youths that are interested in acquiring one skill or another, but the training centers are not there, neither do they have the resources to start their own businesses. This is the huge gap that the government wants to fill.

We want to train them in basic Book Keeping, Marketing and other areas that would help them to be better managers of their businesses. So, our major focus is to assist the teaming youths to polish their skills, so that they can create wealth. It’s important to stress that we are going to work with them in their areas of interest. We want our products to be the best, whether in tailoring, tiling or carpentry, so that people can talk highly of them like they talk about Ghanaians in terms of the quality of their products and skills in building.

The other mandates include supporting entrepreneurship – those who already have businesses but lack the resources to expand them. So, we will be helping them in areas like marketing in addition to funding. The governor wants to industrialize Sokoto State and has several programmes in place for the private sector. The advantages are numerous- he is looking at citizens that are gainfully employed and that can contribute to the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state, which would help fund social services.

Before now, the ministries of Local Government and Social Welfare were involved in driving skills acquisition programmes…Will your ministry with its creation be fully in charge of every programme that has to do with skills acquisition?

I want you to understand one fact. And that’s though the assignment – the creation of jobs would be driven largely by the Ministry, but that the other ministries like the Ministry of Local Government, the Digital Economy would definitely be involved in job creation. The local governments like you know are autonomous – that’s one of the 9- Point Smart Agenda of the governor- and so they have every right to initiate skills acquisition programmes. We are going to be the main vehicle but there would be synergy between the ministry, and the other ministries, especially the ministry of local government and development partners to ensure success…to avoid duplication of efforts. What we want is a better tomorrow for our people. We are not interested in taking credit. …the spotlight. It would be a collaborative effort – the era of ministries acting in isolation is past.

It has been noticed that your governor usually gifts leather works to visitors to the state. Is it natural to expect leather works to be part of the programme?

Absolutely. Sokoto State for more than 100 years has been historically associated with leather works. It would definitely be a priority area considering the fact that we have the raw materials and reservoir of skills. Without sounding arrogant, Sokoto leather is one of the best in the world. So, we will provide them with the equipment and training to improve on their finishing- finishing is critical. About the gifts by the governor to visitors it would surprise you to know that some of them are produced by housewives. Am sure you will want to ask about disabled people? They are part of our mandate. Like the housewives that I spoke about …we have some blind men who are actively knitting caps and cane chairs. Our operating motto is, how do we make them produce better products and to harvest the abundant talents towards self-reliance? Everyone in Sokoto State is in Governor Sokoto’s programme.

Governor Ahmed Aliyu during the 2024 International Day of Persons Living with Disabilities (PWDs) promised to introduce a special skills acquisition programme for PWDs in the state as part of a deliberate effort aimed at making physically challenged persons gainfully employed and to reduce street begging…clearly these persons are close to the heart of the governor. So we must factor them into our programme as of right. There are 6,679 registered physically challenged persons benefiting from the monthly allowance from the government and the governor plans to increase the number of beneficiaries to 10,000.

What number of unemployed people are you working with? And is your planning based on statistics?

As of 2024, we had about 31,594 unemployed people in Sokoto State, which represents about 1.2% of the population of the state. This is statistical data from the National Bureau of Statistics. So, with that number the state ought to have been spending about N3 billion yearly to address the unemployment problem. But most unfortunately Tambuwal for reasons best known to him abandoned the skills acquisition programmes. He didn’t pretend that it wasn’t his priority and that his presidential ambition was all that mattered to him.

The Tambuwal administration committed an unpardonable crime against the people of Sokoto State by abandoning the well-thought-out programmes. Meaning that the gains recorded during the Senator Wamakko administration were lost during the eight years of Tambuwal. We lost the sustainability. Now we need to assure the people that we mean business and that we won’t abandon them like Tambuwal did. That in the last eight years nothing happened is now history…this is the attitude of the governor, no need wasting time on spilled milk. But we have a responsibility to explain to the world that Aminu Tambuwal was a tragedy.

The logical follow up question is have you identified the skills gaps that you intend to address?

We have engaged the services of a consultant to help us navigate the issues of skills, the training manual, duration and other issues. We are not unaware of skills that are going out of fashion. For instance, we use to have CD shops …a line of business that has been “killed” by technology. For example, with Spotify you can play millions of songs from your phone. So, we are taking such developments into consideration in terms of skills that might become obsolete so we don’t have to go back retraining them again. …because the world is constantly in a state of change, we have to accept that changes are part of life. We are very much aware that we have a duty to only train our people in skills that are relevant to our people. If it happens that a particular skill is no longer relevant to our society, we will not waste our time going into it. We will definitely be doing things in technology which is not going to be obsolete in the near future, ICT and digital skills are one of the most sought after in the labour market. …. same with farming. We will also assess the skill level of participants.

For instance, now, ICT, digital skills one of the most Sought after in the labour market?

Answer: I agree with you that there’s so much to do in the digital space, but we want to be guided by an expert. For instance, there are people living in the rural areas, the villages, who know next to nothing about computers and who have no digital skills. We want as much as possible to be guided by the facts. We won’t impose. The survey will guide us in the choice of programmes for the state. In a senatorial district, farming might be the best option while for a metropolitan area like the capital, we will be concentrating on digital programmes.

From experience again, are you likely to have an incubation center, with the government equipping the place – because the government doesn’t need to buy 20 sewing machines for 20 people, which 40 people can actually use?

Like I said earlier, part of what we have done once I was sworn in as the honorable commissioner was to undertake an assessment tour of the incubation centers. I have since submitted my report to the governor. They have suffered some dilapidation. We only need to effect repairs to make it more comfortable for the various centers to start running.

How do you intend to evaluate the effectiveness of the various programmes to see if there is room for adjustments based on the findings of the evaluations?

Without evaluations we can’t assess our efforts. So, we definitely would constantly be evaluating our participants. For us the process would start by ensuring that they are counseled to go for what they have passion in. This is very important. And when they begin their training, it would certainly make our assignment easier. They will be subjected to vigorous training in book keeping, in marketing and….

What are your projections?

We are ambitious, but very realistic in our projections. We don’t want to bite more than we can chew. But be rest assured that we are going to give it our all. For instance, we have businessmen that are exporting onions to places like Ghana in large quantities, so we are going to work with them to make better profit, to remove bottlenecks. So, we need their statistics. …they are earning foreign exchange for the country. The Sokoto State government is in collaboration with the United Nation Development Programme to encourage dry season farming, to understand the climate change impacts, to know when to farm, when to harvest and to provide them with farming inputs. His excellency has supported farmers with farming inputs, seedlings, insecticide. Skills acquisition is jack of all trades and master of all.

So, the duration would be three months- would that be okay?

Yes, three months. Like I said before, we have some experience running skills acquisition programmes and the technical officers have assured me that three months would be adequate for the training including hands-on experience. The maximum would be six months.

Let’s talk a bit of politics. You are a citizen of the state and you have always been in government – has Governor Aliyu Ahmad performed?

Absolutely. And even the opposition PDP acknowledge the fact that the governor has surpassed their expectations. They are our friends. We share notes …never mind that once in a while they will issue their toxic press releases alleging this or that. In less than two years, His Excellency Dr Ahmad Aliyu has achieved what the Aminu Tambuwal administration couldn’t achieve in eight years. And this is a fact. He completed abandoned projects, unlike Tambuwal who did not complete the projects that he inherited from Wamakko.

Is the governor’s second term guaranteed?

You know, power comes from God, that’s our belief. But considering his unprecedented achievements I have no doubt in my mind that he would win the 2027 elections hands down. Governor Ahmad Aliyu Sokoto has worked tirelessly to touch lives because the people are the essence of government. They have stood by the governor. By last year the governor had completed over 180 projects. During the first 100 days he vigorously attacked the projects that the previous administration had abandoned. The people of Sokoto State are no fools. They can see the roads; the schools and healthcare facilities and the governor are accessible to them because he is focused on Sokoto State and he is not using the position as a stepping stone for the presidency.