Graduates trade certificates for spanners, grease pits

**In a region where a university degree is traditionally seen as the golden ticket to a secure office job, a quiet revolution is brewing on the dusty streets of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. **

Young graduates of engineering and computer science from the University of Maiduguri are now trading their certificates for spanners, turning convention on its head and rewriting the rules of the local auto mechanics.

A reporting tour by our correspondent to some mechanic workshops within Maiduguri revealed an interesting shift. One of them, Musa Bala, a Computer Science graduate from the University of Maiduguri, who finished with impressive grades, found himself facing the harsh reality of the Nigerian job market.

As months turned into years, white-collar jobs simply didn’t materialise. Rather than joining the swelling ranks of the unemployed while waiting indefinitely for a government or corporate appointment, Bala made a bold, unorthodox choice.

He walked into a bustling neighborhood auto mechanic workshop to see if the analytical and problem-solving skills honed during his years at the university could find a place beneath the hood of a car.

Lowering his pride, Bala enrolled as an apprentice under a veteran local mechanic—a man who had never stepped foot in a formal classroom and could barely read or write in English. What followed has become the talk of the community.

Within months of entering the trade, Bala engineered a major breakthrough. Merging his foundational computer training with practical mechanics, he introduced advanced, computer-aided methods for diagnosing complex vehicular electrical and mechanical problems.

Today, he is no longer just an apprentice; he is effectively leading the workshop. His technological approach has brought unprecedented precision and speed to vehicle repairs, drastically cutting down the costly trial-and-error diagnostics that traditionally plagued roadside mechanics.

This fusion of modern tech and traditional craftsmanship has naturally attracted a surge of new customers, significantly boosting the workshop’s daily revenue.

In an interview with Weekend Trust, Bala said some of his classmates decided to join networking business and phone accessories, but four of them decided to venture into the auto mechanics trade. However, two of them are still in the trade.

“Four of us took this path, but two have left. One was employed by Zenith Bank while the other got an appointment in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) in Abuja.

“Alhamdulillah, I am doing very well here. I make N25,000 daily. The least amount I realise on a bad day is N10,000,” he said

On an average of N15,000 daily, Bala makes at least N450,000 monthly.

Asked if he envied his friends that secured jobs at the NNPC and Zenith Bank, he said, “I used to think of switching to government work for a reason, not the money. I don’t think any government job can compliment what I earn here.

“The highest a white collar job can give as salary is N200,000. I earn far more than that. I can only accept a government job if it would allow me to practise the mechanic job,” he said.

Bala said he started the apprenticeship before graduating from the university to support him complete the degree, being that he comes from a poor background.

“Initially, I came here to be a diagnostic engineer, but I was compelled to learn the repairs to complete every task perfectly. I now specialise in German car repairs,” he said.

According to him, he has tonnes of ideas to implement, but the society is not encouraging him.

“They still don’t agree with us when I suggest we use computer for diagnosis. I used to tell them that if a person can subject himself to an X-ray machine in hospital, why deny the use of a computer on his vehicle?

“X-ray was a programme used on vehicles before transferring the technology to humans.

“Advanced countries have seen the invention of Teleport, where physical goods are transported within seconds, but we are yet to accept car diagnosis,” he observed.

Bala’s inspiring journey has sent shockwaves through the academic community in Maiduguri, with a growing number of graduates of engineering, computer science and other fields from the University of Maiduguri joining the business.

Also, Abdulwasiu Jimoh, a graduate of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, with a master’s degree in Disaster Management, operates around the Leventis area of Maiduguri. Influenced by his father’s philosophy that every child must possess a practical skill, Jimoh had nurtured a long-time passion for automobile repairs.

Despite humanitarian workers and non-governmental organisations offering him salaried positions of N250,000 upwards, Jimoh routinely turns them down. He even walked away from an NGO job after just four days because he could not adjust to the restrictions of a monthly salary.

“Somebody that is getting money on a daily basis cannot withstand monthly pay. I don’t think I can cope. This is the job that gives me enough money, and most importantly, freedom. I come to work at my convenient time,” Jimoh noted.

As a family man with three children, Jimoh advises fellow graduates to abandon the endless wait for scarce office jobs.

Echoing recent national sentiments on the primacy of vocational proficiency, he noted, “A skill is better than getting a degree. You can get the skill and still get the degree.”

He advised graduates waiting for white collar jobs to change their minds, adding that it doesn’t work for a lot of people.

“I have seen situations where this doesn’t work for some people. I have friends that graduated the same year as me but they are still not doing anything. One of them just secured a job of N53,000 monthly. As I am talking to you, I am a family man; I have three children.

“I also have friends who are not even thinking of getting married because they are not doing anything,” he said.

Ahmed Abba, a mechanical engineer who graduated from the University of Maiduguri, said it had been a long way into the mechanics trade.

He narrated how his father took him to a workshop to start learning the skills; and since then, he held on to the trade, before and after graduating from the university.

“I always thank this decision taken for me by my father. Before me there were many graduates who couldn’t secure white collar jobs and they keep filling up.

“As I am now, I don’t think a white-collar job can give me what I earn here. But I can’t tell you how much I am making,” he said.

Abba also said he could not take an office job of N200,000 in exchange for the mechanic workshop. “As a family man, with the economic situation in Nigeria now, N200,000 can’t sustain me. I am an employer of labour now; I have boys working under me,” he noted.

He called on graduates waiting for white-collar jobs to have a rethink and learn skills that would make them self-reliant.

Our correspondent observed that the influx of university-educated youths into the informal sector has transformed the landscape of Maiduguri’s auto-repair garages.

In some of the workshops visited, modern scanning tools, digital diagnostics and computer-based software have largely replaced the analogue guesswork of the past, making literacy and technical education vital assets in the trade.

Don’t depend on your degree, learn skills – Prof Lawan

Professor Muhammed Lawan, who patronises one of the auto mechanic workshops, said he had met many graduates and secondary school leavers who are making good money from the business.

He said, “I will advise graduates to either join or start doing something else. You cannot depend on your degree where there’s no employment; people are struggling.

“As I told you earlier, I have been a customer of this garage for many years. They always squeeze something from me, so I know how much they get.

“You can see vehicles all over the place. I know what I usually give out. And I am sure that others will give out too. They make a lot of money out of this business.

“It is needles to mention that white collar jobs are not paying, even for most of us who have been there for long. I will advise graduates to start learning something during their youth service or even after service.

“I am sure that these artisans are earning more than graduates employed by the government. I will advise graduates not to sit and wait for white-collar jobs. In every household, you will see graduates sitting idle and depending on parents. Why not engage in other skills to fend for themselves.”

On job ethics, he said, “I advised them to be sincere in their jobs and demonstrate some good qualities so that people would trust them. For example, not everybody can afford a new spare part, so if they are giving you a second-hand product, they should be sincere. Let people have trust in what they do.”

He also advised customers to be open and trust the mechanics.

Mohammed Ojo Abdulhamid, a graduate of Accountancy from Ramat Polytechnic who said he had been in the business for a very long time, added: “I can only leave this trade for a part time job. I can’t leave it completely. After my working hour I will come here. I will not go into a work that would take all my time.”

Asked how much he makes, he hesitated and said: “I make a lot. I can’t say it is seasonal, but once the work comes, I get a salary of a civil servant in a day.”

Another car owner, Mr Paul Nelson, who is said to be one of the graduates that specialise in electric defaults in vehicles, said he was satisfied with the dexterity of the mechanics.

“An electrician working on my car referred me to this guy and I am not disappointed. He fixed the problem that had taken us too long to identify and even found other problems and repaired them.

“I have a lot of experience with mechanics. They are human. Sometimes you will find the good ones, but if you are not lucky, you meet the wrong ones who always complicate the problem,” he said.

**Influx of graduates threatens ‘uneducated’ mechanics **

Weekend Trust reports that the influx of graduates into this informal sector is threatening ‘uneducated’ mechanics and triggering debate among economic analysts and labour experts.

While many people praise the trend for injecting the much-needed technical expertise, modernisation and efficiency into the roadside auto-repair industry, some observers have raised concerns.

One of the analysts, Alhaji Ahmadu Ibrahim of Sociology Department, Yobe State University, said the rapid infusion of formally trained engineers into the traditional roadside mechanic sector could marginalise the informal workforce.

“I want to advise the government to treat this matter with all seriousness because roadside mechanics have been there for over a century. And it is a source of livelihood for millions of people.

“Let the government train local mechanics and provide them with ‘smart’ diagnostic tools to compete favourably because training alone may not offset the market forces if the cost of technology remains prohibitive,” he said.

He observed that without such training, the rapid integration of highly trained graduates could eventually outcompete and marginalise uneducated, indigenous mechanics, potentially threatening the livelihoods of those who built the industry from the ground.

On his part, Malam Hassan Biu, who runs a local mechanic workshop and trained some of the unemployed graduates, said he was very happy with the upgrade of some workshops to the auto-repair industry.

He noted that the new trend brought ease of repair and reduced guesswork. He, however, lamented that some of their loyal customers were leaving them for computer diagnosis.

“They only trust the computer diagnosis done by Bala and his friends. Unfortunately, majority of our electricians cannot afford a laptop and the software to compete,” he noted.