Challenge Of Unemployment And National Dev

No doubt,  Nigeria is bedevilled by a miscellany of hydra-headed problems. One of suuch problems is the growing rate of unemployment. Nigeria, though endowed with natural resources to drive rapid development,  has the highest unemployment rate in the world. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s unemployment rate as at 2023 is 33.3 per cent. This rate is about 360 per cent higher than the 2021 rate which was 9.79 per cent and about 180 per cent higher than the 16 per cent rate of 2022. In a similar situation, a Global Youth Unemployment Index shows that Nigeria has the second highest number of unemployed youths in the world. From the analysis, it is evident that unemployment is on geometric growth like a phoenix in Nigeria with a population conservatively put at 200 million people and speculated to rise to 250 million in 2030 according to Demographers.
Unemployment in Nigeria is a conspiracy of several factors. According to Dr. Smith Afolabi, a renowned economist, the lack of employable skills by several Nigerians, especially the young population, due to inappropriate school curricular and some courses run by tertiary institutions that lacked the capacity to equip the students with employable skills for the labour market on graduation is a major factor. Developed economies of the world are entrepreneurship-driven and not necessarily a function of academic or paper qualifications. It is unarguably true that several people working or in the labour market are not working by their academic qualifications. Apart from the deliberate and intentional efforts by the political class to kill the public / civil service through demotivating policies and non payment of workers and retirees’ entitlements, the white collar or civil service jobs are no more paying.
The take-home is too paltry to take the civil servant home. This explains  the growing disenchantment, agitations and poverty among the civil servants as against the political office holders whose service years are far less than the civil servants who serve 35 years.Wisdom demands that the clamour and yearning for white collar job should be de-emphasised  by Nigerians or there should be diversified economic generation initiative to cope with the harsh socio-economic realities in Nigeria. Already, the Nigerian government headed by Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu has sounded to Nigerians that, “days of white collar jobs are over”.
According to a report in the Wednesday, July 5, 2023 edition of The Tide Newspaper, The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, David Adejo,  on July 4, 2023, after monitoring the National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB) examination in Abuja,  said the world has moved beyond the days of the white-collar job. He urged parents to encourage their children and wards  to take a career in vocational and technical education. Every year, higher institutions in Nigeria-universites, polytechnics, colleges of education etc- churn out graduates into labour market that is already saturated with unemployment. These yearly graduands further aggravate the rate of unemployment as many have not acquired employable skills or did not study courses that are relevant to the development of the nation’s or state’s economy.
The geometric population growth has also created an overwhelming  increase in youth population that needed to be meaningfully engaged. The unavailability of the much desired jobs has occasioned the several youth involvement in crime and criminality, including cultism, prostitution, armed robbery, advance fee fraud, banditry. In a determined efforts to curb the growing unemployment rate, the Rivers State Government has left no stone unturned. For instance, previous and successive administrations have put in place several youth empowerment and economic development programmes such as loan to drive small  and medium  businesses in the State while providing enabling environment for investors and entrepreneurs to operate. The School-to-Land scheme of a former Governor Fidelis Oyakhilome sited on a 250 hectares of arable land in Bukuma in Degema Local Government Area of Rivers State cannot be consigned to history.
The bane of most government’s  economic development policies is lack of sustainability. The School-To-Land and the Graduate Farmers Scheme which were  hosted by the Bukuma community became moribund after the government that initiated them left office, thereby throwing the beneficiaries of the schemes into unemployment. Recently, the social media and the traditional media including the print and electronic media, reported  that the Rivers State COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (RIV-CARES) has  empowered more than 500 Small and Medium Scale enterprises in Rivers State, since December 2022  under the World Bank Federal and State Government COVID-19 intervention grant designed to boost businesses after the pandemic.
Speaking at a technical session for digital/e-commerce integration of beneficiaries for RIV-CARES Result Area 3 disbursement ceremony in Port Harcourt, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Lawson Ikuru, said the programme was aimed at building businesses. Although, the federal government on her part has initiated several programmes to address the problem of unemployment in the country, the challenge of unemployment still persists multi-dimensionally.Some of the schemes and policy of the federal government are, the establishment of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) to provide vocational and entrepreneurship skills training for various categories of Nigerians. Some of the beneficiaries or trainees are resettled or empowered after successful completion of training. The  Graduate Farmers Scheme has the dual purpose of empowering graduates of tertiary institutions who opt for agro-allied economic development and making food sufficient.
The scheme in Rivers State was sited in Bukuma in Degema Local Government Area. Another scheme of the federal government to impact the beneficiaries with skills is the National Youth Service Corps established in 1973 (about 50 years ago). It is mandatory for graduates of government-recognised degree awarding tertiary institutions to undertake a one year period of national service before they are absorbed into the labour market. It helps graduates within the prescribed age bracket to gain the desired experience which would enhance their chances of securing gainful employment or become self-employed  at the end of the service’s primary assignment, haven acquired the requisite training and skills to be absorbed. Concerned with unemployment menace in Nigeria and its attendant challenges, His Majesty, King Charles 111 of England has “set up an initiative to tackle unemployment, bridge skills gap and enhance employability of Nigerian youths”.
This was disclosed in Lagos at the Prince Trust International (PTI) Recruitment Fair held on July 4, 2023, in collaboration with the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) and  Field of Skills and Dreams (FSD). According to Mr. Will Straw, the Chief Executive Officer, PTI, Nigerian youths are faced with the issues of skills, job and experience gaps. “Over 10 million Nigerian children are out of school. Many more leave school early to start earning. Many had  left education without the skills needed to enter the workforce. “And with far more job seekers than  formal jobs, most young people in Nigeria have to work in the informal sector which makes up over half of the economy. Young people are told ‘you can’t get a job because you lack experience’ but can’t gain experience because you can’t get a job”.
To address the unemployability of young people because of lack of experience and skills, Straw said the PTI was committed to bridging the gap by focusing on Programmes that will equip youths with skills and tackle the global crisis of youth unemployment. For its part, the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has commenced  Technology  Initiative Development Programme (TIDP) aimed at empowering and supporting young innovators in Nigeria. According to Prof. Adesina Sodiya, President of NCS, to facilitate innovation each team member will receive brand new laptops and financial support to keep them motivated. “The TIDP Programme initiated three years ago, aims to foster innovation and development in Nigeria. It seeks to provide resources and experience to young individuals with brilliant ideas but  limited means to translate them into world-class solutions.
The programme will also build a community of young innovators who can become  successful entrepreneurs or find employment. No doubt, unemployment is posing threat to peace and stability of society. It is one of the leading causes of crime and criminalities in Nigeria, especially among the youth population. As a way to curb the vicissitudes attendant on unemployment, youths should be trained to acquire skills that are relevant to real labour demands; Credit and loan facility should be made available to youths at single-digit  interest rate to enable them set up their businesses. Government at all levels should fill existing vacancies in the public/civil service. There is a growing depletion of workforce at the Federal, State and Local Government Area levels, as a result of retirement, death, resignation for greener pastures. Women should be empowered to assist in home-building.
The employers of labour in the private sector should raise the bar on employment of manpower. This is necessary because in several private businesses only few staff drive the corporate goals of the organisation. They use the few workers maximally, and pay them peanut. In what looks like slave-labour the workers are compelled to give in their totality to the job, yet the pay is provocative.
Casual and contract staffing is now systemic and a norm because employers of labour in both private and public sectors want to maximise profit at the expense of engaged labour. It is high time operators of private and public enterprises, including private schools, be reminded that the most critical factor of production is manpower and not capital. It requires motivated and efficient workers to achieve the corporate goals of any organisation.
Toy with workers, the establishment totters on the brink of bankruptcy and consequent disintegration. The unavailability of work should not promote slave and casual work in Nigeria. The dignity of human should be factored into the management and administration of private and public enterprises. Underdevelopment is inevitable if workers are not motivated to be productive.

By: Igbiki Benibo