Anambra Residents Call For Promotion Of Igbo Apprenticeship Scheme

A cross section of Anambra residents have called for extensive campaigns on the dignity of labour, to resuscitate the concept of Igbo apprenticeship for sustainable economic development of the South East and Nigeria at large.

They made the call in Awka while commenting on the declining glory of Igbo apprenticeship system also known as Igba Boyi.

Igba Boyi is an Igbo apprenticeship system that offers young boys the opportunities to learn business under the tutelage of a master for a certain number of years. At the end of the apprenticeship, they are settled by their masters with reasonable amounts of money to start their own businesses.

Commenting on the decline of the concept of Igba Boyi, a onetime Commissioner for Lands in Anambra State, Barrister Okoli Akirika lamented that the initiative which helped Igbos to quickly bounce back to the nation’s economic system after the civil war and produced numerous Igbo billionaires is now on the brinks of extinction due to lack of proper training, orientation, association with unnecessary peer groups and the urge to get rich quick on the part of the youths.

The legal practitioner observed that the situation has resulted in lack of succession in many businesses, as when the founder of a business is gone, there will not be capable hands to take over, as people are now abandoning the need to get acquainted with apprenticeship.

He stressed the need for proper contextual parental and societal reorientation of the youths to revive the concept of apprenticeship as it will promote dignity of labour.

On his part, a beneficiary of Igbo apprenticeship and councilor representing Umudioka ward two in Dunukofia Local government area, Mr. Cyril Agubueze described it as a well-articulated system that helped him to become a successful businessman as well as accounted for discipline, orderliness and decency in Nigeria.

Mr. Agubueze called on youths to shun such actions like ritual killings, kidnappings, internet scam and cultism, but engage in apprenticeship to achieve their potential in life.