19th November, 2013
By Bilikis Bakare
Besides insecurity and corruption in high places, unemployment remains one of the most critical problems the country is facing. Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and the second largest economy in the continent with a population of over 150 million, is endowed with diverse and infinite human, material and capital resources. Sadly, however, years of unbridled corruption, mis-management and sheer waste have hindered economic growth in the country. Consequently, the nation’s resources have been left under-utilized leading to unemployment and abject poverty, the twin evils which experts believe may scuttle the attainments of the Millennium Development Goals in the country.
According to a recent World Bank statistics, youth unemployment rate is 38 percent, but realistically, 80 percent of Nigerian youths are unemployed with secondary school graduates mostly found among unemployed rural population accounting for about half of this figure, while university and polytechnic graduates make up the figure. What is worrisome is the fact that the nation’s universities and polytechnics continue to churn out more than 150,000 graduates annually and available jobs remain inadequate to keep pace with the ever expanding army of job seekers.
Not long ago, a Federal Government agency put up an advertisement for recruitment and on the D-day, the mammoth crowd of applicants was so much that the officials of the agency could not control, resulting in the death of some of the applicants due to exhaustion and probably as a result of hypoglycemia arising from not taking any meal before leaving for the venue of the recruitment exercise. Similarly , another agency of the Federal Government recently opted for recruitment through online registration, perhaps to prevent the kind of mayhem discussed above and probably to reduce the number of applicants, but the number of applications they received was 120,000, jostling for the mere 25 vacant positions.
The problem of unemployment is so bad that the Minister of Finance and the Supervising Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala recently confessed that she is losing her sleep on the issue. The Federal Government has lamented that Nigeria may not be able to meet the requirements for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals by year 2015 due to the challenges posed by unemployment. This view was similarly corroborated by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on the Millennium Development Goals, Dr Precious Gbeneol, while making a submission on the occasion of World Science Day for Peace and Development held in Abuja.
The security situation in the country caused by incessant attacks by insurgents in the North and kidnapping in the South East is part of the numerous causes of unemployment in the country due to the fact that no investor will like to put his money where he will be afraid of moving freely.`
It is pertinent to stress that if the current spate of unemployment continues unabated, many of these graduates will eventually be recruited into the rank of oil theft syndicates, armed robbers, kidnappers, militants and insurgents; while their female counterparts will end up as prostitutes. Therefore, to reduce the problem of unemployment in the country, individuals concerned, the private sectors and governments, at all levels, must put in place creative measures to stem the tide.
Poorly skilled individuals are replete in all sectors of the nation’s economy and to address this, acquisition of vocational skills have been identified as tools for moulding employable individuals as unemployed individuals need more skills than they already have to find new jobs. Graduates of various institutions should be encouraged to acquire vocational skills that can prepare them for self employment and financial independence because with paid employment one earns a living but with self employment ones earning is unlimited.
On skill acquisition trainings for graduates, the National Youth Service Corps should be commended for introducing skills acquisition and entrepreneurship training for youths, including graduates undergoing the mandatory one-year National Youth Service. And for this skill acquisition to be effective, entrepreneurial finance training should be organised, where corporate organisations and financial institutions would be invited to enlighten the youths on suitable ways of financing their dream projects.
In Lagos State, the state government has been working assiduously in the direction of entrepreneurship and empowerment. It has established skill acquisition training centres across the state where youths and adults are trained in various vocations of their choice, after which they are provided with needed capital to start off on their own. The state Ministry of Agriculture and Co- operatives recently sent 100 youths to the Songhai Centre in Benin Republic for training on various agricultural skills and the provision of employment for them in the Agric YES [Youth Empowerment Scheme] program. Youths are also being employed as volunteers in the various health centres in the state to keep them busy with allowances paid to them.
Perhaps, more importantly, the various higher institutions in the country should review their courses to admit vocational and skill acquisition trainings as part of a renewed vigour to produce graduates that would generate employments for others. Presently, most of the courses in our higher institutions are not suitable for the contemporary economic reality. A modification of the higher institutions curriculum to meet the reality of the moment, would go a long way in solving current unemployment trend in the country.
Similarly, the time is ripe for the Federal Government to look beyond oil by diversifying the economy. We need to resuscitate the olden days groundnut pyramids in the North, the cocoa plantations in the West and the oil palm plantations in the Eastern part of the country. This will provide the much needed employment for our youth in addition to opening up more opportunities for growth in the nation’s economy. This is what we need to stir up our own kind of industrial revolution since raw material gotten from our various agricultural produce could feed the nation’s dying industrial sector.
Equally. foreign investors should be mandated to give adequate and necessary trainings to their Nigerian employees to suit the needs of their duties and for the latter to cascade the knowledge down to their countrymen. This is important because it has been observed that most foreign nationals after years of service refuse to train their workers for fear of losing them to rival organisations.
On a final note, the agricultural sector remains one area where we could successfully address youth employment in the country. We need to take a cue from a country like Israel , which despite obvious limitations, have turned around its agricultural sector. To continue to neglect such a vital sector, that has the potential to create jobs for our teeming youths, is to cast doubt on our seriousness as a people.
•Bakare wrote from Lagos.