Mr Lanre Popoola the Vice Chairman, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, South West Zone on Wednesday in Ibadan, advocated for the restoration of technical colleges to end importation of labour into the country.

Popoola who made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) stressed the need to improve the quality of education in technical colleges, to bridge the gap between secondary school and university graduates.

“We actually missed it as a country when the technical colleges went down.

“What we missed then is what we are now importing into the country in terms of expatriates.

“Today, our bills on expatriates run into millions of naira and there is no industry in Oyo here, that doesn’t have at least five expatriates doing work that Nigerians can do.

“I will give you another sad story; we have welders and we have these expatriate welders, what do they do?

“We employ our local welders they work for them, at the end of the day, we give them peanuts, this is happening because our welders are not certified.”

Popoola advised government to consider the restoration of the technical colleges and trade centres to produce a workforce for industries.

“I attended Olivet School in Oyo and the first school bus owned by the school was constructed by the Trade centre in Oyo.

“Where are the trade centres’ today?

“The chunk of expatriates in my office today is from Syria.

“They were recommended to us by the manufacturers of the machines we are using.

“If we had certified artisans, we will save this country a lot of money, we can do it and we will get there one day.” (NAN)