Tackling Unemployment In Nigeria

Last Thursday, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, raised an alarm that Nigeria’s unemployment rate would hit 33.5 per cent by 2010.
The minister who obviously premised his outcry on the 2019 report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), demonstrated helplessness as he wondered aloud why the unemployment rate and poverty levels are on steady paths of growth in spite of several intervention efforts by successive administrations in the country.
While declaring open a two-day workshop on ‘Breaking the Resilience of High Unemployment Rate in the Country,’ last Thursday in Abuja, Ngige said the high unemployment rate of 23.1 per cent, and underemployment of 16.6 per cent by the NBS 2019 report was alarming.
According to him, “It is a worrisome status as the global poverty capital (World Bank, 2018); and concomitant high prevalence rate of crimes and criminality, including mass murders, insurgency, militancy, armed robbery, kidnappings and drug abuse, among others.
“As if this situation is not scary enough, it is projected that the unemployment rate for this country will reach 33.5 per cent by 2020, with consequences that are better imagined, if the trend is not urgently reversed”.
Ngige’s foreboding is not misplaced. The NBS had, in its “Labour Force Statistics – Volume 2: Unemployment and Underemployment by States”, for the Third Quarter, 2018, said that the national unemployment rate for the quarter was 23.1 per cent while the underemployment rate was 20.1 per cent. The top five states with the highest unemployed population, according to NBS report, are Rivers (1,673,991), Akwa Ibom (1,357,754), Kano (1,257,130), Lagos (1,088,352) and Kaduna (940,480).
The report said further that between the third quarter of 2017 and third quarter of 2018, only nine states, including Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Imo, Kaduna, Kogi, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ondo and Rivers recorded a reduction in their unemployment and underemployment rates.
The latest NBS statistics is a time bomb for Nigeria and, unless something urgent is done to reverse the increasing rate of unemployment in the country, its consequences may be fatal. Already, the high prevalence of crimes and criminality among the youth is a direct consequence of high rate of unemployment in the country.
It is sad that Nigeria, in spite of its enormous resources, is facing serious unemployment challenge. This ought not to be, but for poverty of leadership in the country over the years. It is high time, therefore, that government at all levels woke up to the reality of unemployment and its fatal consequences on the nation.
We believe that the country’s unemployment challenge requires a holistic approach that should include collaborative efforts from all stakeholders. But the government must, first of all, provide an enabling environment necessary to boost the economy. One of the ways to do this is by fixing the nation’s epileptic power supply that has crippled several businesses over the years.
Added to this is the need to tackle the insecurity situation in the country which is capable of scaring away foreign investors.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the state of insecurity in the country, just like power supply, is worrisome. We urge the Federal Government to, without further delay, tackle this twin evil that is currently plaguing the nation’s development.
Diversification of the economy is another antidote to the nation’s rising unemployment challenge. Although the Federal Government has made remarkable inroads in this area by its investment in agriculture, it is not yet Uhuru. We expect the state and local governments across the country to take a cue from the Federal Government by investing, not just in agriculture, but also in other non-oil sectors as a way of boosting the nation’s economy, as well as engaging many job-seeking Nigerians.
We believe that unless a collaborative approach that involves a more proactive public-private partnership is adopted, the growing unemployment challenge in the country may continue to worsen, especially against the backdrop of the growing population in the country.