Ibiam: Get training, be prepared for jobs loss

FESTUS UKOH IBIAM is the National Coordinator of
Unique Empowerment and Employment Institute, Lagos.
FESTUS UKOH IBIAM is the National Coordinator of
Unique Empowerment and Employment Institute,
Lagos. He spoke to OMIKO AWA on how people out
of jobs could be trained to make them business
owners and employers of labour.
What would you tell people out of jobs to do to earn
a living?
HERBERT‘S law of negativity says, ‘nothing is
good and nothing is bad;’ so when one looses a
job, he/she should move ahead to the next
level. However, because of the unpleasant
situation some people take to drinking, engage
in different maladjusted behaviours and even
commit suicide, yet there are very many people
that through the situation become Chief
Executive Officers (CEO) of their companies.
Though, there is a difference between
retirement and job loss because one plans for
retirement, while job loss is never planned for.
Even with this, most retirees exhaust their
money two years after leaving service because
they plan to save their money and not invest it.
What is the difference between saving and
investing?
It is like comparing the rich and the wealthy. A
rich man has money, but a wealthy man
creates money. A rich man has a lot of money
to spend, so he spends based on what he has.
Anybody can save money, but it takes people
who are creative to create money. The
entrepreneur creates a system where people
make money and to create money one must
first create a system; so entrepreneurs create
systems, while school train people to fix into
systems. Somebody like Bill Gates, the co-
founder of Microsoft, employed first class
graduates to work for him because he created a
system and people are trained in schools to fix
into that system. Nigerians, especially those
without jobs should get training and begin
small, be self-employed and not wait for the
big jobs. Generally, worker should not be
caught unawares with job loss; they should be
prepared for it, by getting training and
investing in small cottage outfits, instead of
saving money for retirement. They should
create a sustainable system and not prepare
people to fit into already existing system.