NASENI Trains Osun Youths, Women in Photography, Drone Ops, Shoemaking, Hands Over Equipment

The National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has empowered young people and women in Ile-Ife, Osun State, with advanced technical skills and work equipment aimed at helping them establish or strengthen income-generating businesses, under its NASENI Sustainable Empowerment Programme (NSEP).

The three-day training programme, held from August 7 to 9, 2026, at the NASENI Skills Acquisition Centre in Ile-Ife, exposed beneficiaries to four distinct skill areas: Advanced Photography and Drone Operations, Advanced Shoemaking, CCTV and Inverter Installation, and Advanced Tailoring. According to a statement issued by the NASENI Information Unit, the programme was specifically designed to promote self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and sustainable livelihoods among participants, equipping them with both the practical knowledge and the physical tools needed to put their new skills to immediate use.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, the Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of NASENI, Khalil Suleiman Halilu, represented by the Overseeing Officer of the Prototype Engineering Development Institute (PEDI), Ilesha, Ahmed Olaoye Hamzat, explained that the initiative was deliberately designed to move empowerment programmes beyond the mere presentation of certificates. He said the agency's approach centres on providing beneficiaries with practical skills, functional tools, and real opportunities capable of translating directly into sustainable livelihoods and genuine economic independence.

Halilu explained that the programme deliberately paired skills acquisition with the direct provision of relevant equipment, ensuring that beneficiaries would not simply walk away with theoretical training but with the actual tools needed to begin applying their new knowledge immediately. He noted that participants across the various skill areas were exposed to modern techniques and equipment capable of improving their professional capacity, enabling them to offer quality services and build viable, sustainable businesses within their communities.

Urging beneficiaries to treat the equipment they received as a foundation for growth rather than an end in itself, Halilu described the intervention as a sustainable approach to empowerment, likening it to teaching people how to fish rather than simply handing them fish. He commended NASENI's broader commitment to human capacity development, describing it as central to creating pathways for ordinary Nigerians to become economically productive and self-sufficient.

Among the equipment distributed to beneficiaries were tools directly tied to each skill area covered during the training, including digital work tools for those trained in advanced photography and drone operations. In one notable moment during the closing ceremony, traditional rulers, including His Royal Highness the Oranfe of Ife, Chief Abiodun Mulatto, and His Royal Highness the Osogun of Ife, Chief Oladapo Olafiranye, took part in presenting an industrial sewing machine to one of the beneficiaries of the advanced tailoring training, underscoring the level of community and traditional institution involvement in the programme's rollout.

The Ile-Ife training forms part of a broader, nationwide push by NASENI to deploy similar sustainable empowerment interventions across Nigerian states. The agency has, in recent months, rolled out comparable skills and equipment-based programmes in other parts of the country, including a She-Powers Energy Initiative in Kano State that trained 50 women in solar installation, maintenance, and renewable energy enterprise development, reflecting the agency's wider strategy of pairing technical skills training with tangible startup equipment across its various empowerment schemes nationwide.

NASENI, established to promote and develop science, technology, and engineering infrastructure in Nigeria, has increasingly positioned its empowerment programmes as a tool for addressing youth unemployment and expanding economic opportunities for women, particularly in states where access to formal technical and vocational training remains limited. The agency's continued rollout of skills-and-equipment interventions across different states suggests a sustained institutional push toward building grassroots entrepreneurial capacity as part of Nigeria's broader economic diversification and job-creation efforts.