We have 270 universities but we import toothpicks from China

Nigeria now has 270 universities, 150 polytechnics, and nearly two million undergraduates. We also import toothpicks.

That contradiction is the Nigerian skills crisis. Each year, we release 600,000 graduates into a labour market that cannot use them, while manufacturers in Aba and Nnewi hunt for machinists, technicians, and fabricators they cannot find.

The CEO of Educare, Alex Onyia, states the diagnosis plainly: “We have degrees, but we don’t have enough skills.” He is right. His prescription is not another university.

Onyia wants to borrow Germany’s Ausbildung — paid apprenticeships where 17-year-olds train inside factories and often out-earn degree holders. Over half of German youth pass through it. In Nigeria, we herd everyone into lecture halls and wonder why the economy stalls.

He plans to start in the South-East, home to Africa’s densest cluster of indigenous manufacturers. What the region lacks is not enterprise. It lacks structure, certification, and prestige for technical work.

If Nigeria wants fewer okada riders with BSc certificates, it should listen.

The problem is not only jobs. It is a school system that teaches for exams and ignores the factory floor. Onyia’s German model offers a bridge between learning and production — and a way to turn skills into growth.

Since Nigeria’s first university, the University of Ibadan, was established in 1948, and the first indigenous university, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, opened in 1960, educational systems have continued to expand.

These institutions set a precedent as formal university education became widely regarded as the primary route to success, thereby shaping the broader tertiary education system.

Beyond 270 universities, Nigeria runs 150 polytechnics and 90 colleges of education. Those institutions were meant to produce technicians. Instead, they’ve become degree mills, ranking theory over practice and exams over competence. In that environment, malpractice isn’t a bug. It’s the curriculum.

Every year, those degree mills push 600,000 graduates into the labour market.

The National Bureau of Statistics calls it progress. Unemployment, it says, was just 5.4 per cent in 2023. That’s 4.8 million Nigerians without work — after NBS rewrote the rules so one hour of okada counts as a job. Under the old method, the number was 27 per cent.

Here’s how NBS gets to 5.4 per cent. You worked one-hour last week. Any work. For any pay. You’re employed.

That’s how a graduate selling recharge cards outside a bank becomes “employed”. Same for okada riders, food hawkers, house helps, and street traders. They earn something, so they count. But they can’t pay rent, can’t buy drugs when they’re sick, and can’t feed a family.

Employment, by this math, doesn’t mean a livelihood. It means you weren’t idle for 60 minutes.

 That income doesn’t pay rent. It doesn’t buy drugs when a child is sick. It doesn’t build a life.

Millions are underemployed — graduates riding okada between interviews, engineers selling phone cases, accountants braiding hair. They want full work. They get hours.

So “employment” on paper isn’t a livelihood in real life. We produce certificates, not competence. Industry needs welders, but we send them BSc holders who can’t hold a welding torch.

Look at what we import. Toothpicks. Mattresses. Leather slippers. Plastic buckets.

We have 270 universities, and we buy toothpicks from China.

That is the economy, a degree obsession built. Paper without production. Graduates without skills. Factories without workers, and workers without work.

This is where Onyia’s argument starts.

“We have degrees, but we don’t have enough skills.” That’s Alex Onyia, CEO of Educare, and he’s not asking for more universities.

He wants Nigeria to copy Germany. Not its cars. Its apprentices.

Germany didn’t build Siemens and Bosch by pushing everyone into lecture halls. It built Ausbildung — paid, structured apprenticeships inside real companies. A 17-year-old trains as a mechatronics engineer or precision machinist. She earns a wage. She graduates with a global certification. She often out-earns her peers with her degrees.

Half of German youth go through it.

Onyia’s plan starts in the South-East. Not with seminars. With factories. Apprentices in Aba are learning industrial fabrication. In Nnewi, automotive engineering. In Onitsha, electronics. Real tools. Real payroll. Real certificates.

“This is not ‘Igba Boy’,” he says. “This is world-class.”

He’s betting the Sout-East can do what Germany did for Europe: power a continent’s industry. “The next millionaires won’t all write code,” Onyia argues. “Some will build the machines.”

Ideas don’t build factories. Policy does.

If Onyia’s apprenticeships are going to work, three things have to change.

First, power. No one learns mechatronics by candlelight. State governments must fix electricity to industrial clusters in Aba and Nnewi, or the tools stay off.  Abia State’s Governor Otti is already showing the direction.

Second, money. Pay companies to train. Tax breaks for every apprentice on payroll. FG-backed certification so a welder in Onitsha can work in Munich.

Third, prestige. Until parents want their children to be technicians, we’ll keep producing jobless graduates. That starts at the top.

The South-East Forum of Former Governors says it wants the zone to progress. Here’s a test. Endorse Onyia’s plan publicly. Push South-East governors to fund workshops, not more lodges. Stop chasing Abuja for appointments and start chasing skills.

Pythagoras told his students: “Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.”

We have 270 universities. Most are louder than silence and worth less.

History won’t remember who built the biggest Government House. It might remember who built the first world-class apprentice — and had the sense to shut up and let the work speak. The bottom line!