Nigeria faces a deepening unemployment crisis with the youth jobless rate climbing faster. Joel Moses Babatunde, founder of the African Workforce Summit (AWS), highlighted ways the summit is helping young people gain employment and improving their personal branding to match the 21st-century work demands. Excerpts by BusinessDay’s Wasiu Alli.
Nigeria’s unemployment crisis continues to deepen, especially among youth. What specific gap was the African Workforce Summit created to address, and how is it different from other interventions?
One of the major pain points in our hearts was because we know that by 2050, Africa will have the youngest population in the world.
Having the youngest population means that we should be preparing to go back to the days when Africa used to be the pride of the world. Days where literally everyone wanted to get into a partnership with us. But if we don’t seize the future from now, if we don’t start making deliberate moves from now, we are definitely going to lose it. And that’s why we are putting up an event like this that is going to even outlive us at the end of the day.
And why are we doing this? We’re trying as much as possible to focus on three major things — topmost for us, upskilling them; re-skilling them; and also paying attention to their personal development. So that’s like the foundation of what our event is about.
At the event we try as much as possible to get people who have real reposition.
By reposition, I mean people who have real vacancies in their companies, in their consulting outlets and things like that. They come to our event on day one to shop for talents. So you come to the event; there’s a possibility that some people will come to the event and go back home with a job.
And we’re arranging all this on SDG 8. So that’s basically what’s keeping our own event a little bit different from every other job fair that happens in Lagos and in Nigeria by extension.
This second edition’s theme is “The Fuse”. What does it represent, and why is it chosen for this particular year?
We’re bringing people from all walks of life, and that’s why it’s called the African Workforce Summit. What’s that one thing that would serve as a melting pot for every single person within the workforce apart from The Fuse? So now, apart from “The Fuse” representing a spark, it also represents a melting pot where all professionals, whether from tech or freelancers, whether they’re in HR or institutes. It’s a convergence of different people from all walks of life coming together, media or whatever you want to think of, coming together in a melting pot to create that fuse.
What practical steps does AWS offer to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity?
We have a lot of graduates, but how many of them are employable? So employability is a major theme, and that’s one of the focuses of day one. Apart from just putting people in front of opportunities, we also have employability workshops. Three of them will be happening on day one.
These employability workshops will teach you things like the art of salary negotiation and the art of networking, because in this age and time, it’s not just enough for you to send your CVs.
There are times when people close jobs just by networking. A lot of jobs are not even published. It’s just within networks. So you get them from proper galvanised networking and things like that. We are going to be teaching people how to be employable, literally. How do we now bridge that gap? We’ll do employability classes. We’ll also help people with their LinkedIn optimisation. Because personal branding is also a major theme. It’s also how to position yourself for this opportunity.
You’ve built a unique brand as “Oga HR”, blending HR expertise with storytelling, culture, and even food. How has that helped you connect with a younger generation and shift how they think about work?
The name is catchy; it’s beautiful, but then it comes with a lot of responsibility. It means that I don’t have a choice but to be an industry leader, someone who will definitely give a lot of publications, whether spoken or written, things like that.
And also, because of that name, I’ve tried as much as possible to find a niche for myself. And just to put it into perspective and give you an example. The African Workforce Summit is one of those initiatives that was born out of trying to live up to the expectation of OgaHR. I’m so passionate about the African workforce, employability, and then young people.
When you bring these three things together, it just makes up for what you see at the African Workforce Summit. Not to also mention other mixers, you know, and small virtual events that I’ve done. I’ve done that for five years. It’s been on for five years. I have trained at least over a thousand HR professionals, especially people, you know, entry-level, mid-level, and also seniors.
You mentioned the other time that one of the core takeaways from this event would be opportunities to network and even get employed. Are there other specifics or other perks that this event portends to give to the attendees?
Oh, yes. I’ve said it so many times that this event stands on three pillars — helping people get opportunities, job opportunities; helping people upskill, reskill, and develop personally through the conversations that they will hear and also networking; ushering first-time employers into the workforce.
And what do I mean by that? We have a pitch contest that will also be happening within the two days. The winner takes home $1,000.
So that person who has been pitching for so many years or has not even gotten an opportunity to come and pitch pitches for the first time and then is going home with $1,000.
Last year’s summit produced strong outcomes. Can you share any standout stories or results that illustrate AWS’s tangible value?
When we were done doing the event, I was really, really hard on myself. I was knocking my head and all that because I was just not so proud of the fact that nobody got a job. People did not get a job on this spot, but there was a process.
We started the process that day. There were a lot of testimonials later. I think it was around July last year, because we did it on the 8th of June last year. I went to an event to speak, and then about three people came to me, and they’d be like, Well, “I got a job”.
So, for me, to be honest, because, you know, every edition, I like to define what success is to me. So, success for me was for people to get jobs. People got jobs, and I was incredibly happy.
You’ve hinted at expanding the African Workforce Summit to Kigali and Nairobi, which are, by far, two vibrant cities in Africa. So, what’s the broader vision, and how do you see this platform evolving across the continent?
I’m really passionate about Africa. I can spend 10 hours talking about my passion for Africa and young
people within Africa, right? And that’s why we are going to some choice places.
If I want to have a good time, just go and enjoy myself. I’ll be going to a place like maybe South Africa. But Kigali, though bedevilled by unemployment, is opening up right now because a lot of Nigerians are going there to do a lot of tech events. Same for Kenya. And I’m just following that trend.
The broader vision, like you asked, the African Workforce Summit is going to be happening twice every year. What it means is it will happen in Lagos and any other African countries. We couldn’t do it last year because it was our first time. We didn’t have the content. But now, we’re doing it in Lagos, on the 27th and 28th of June.
For us, we want to see how many Africans, how many young people within the workforce in Africa, can get employed. And help their entire personal development. That’s the goal. We might even get funding because we want to see a time where we would partner with organisations and institutions like the African Union.
