TO say it is much easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a competent graduate to secure employment in Nigeria is undeniably saying the gospel truth. Despite the arrays of opportunities that abound in the country, it is very disheartening that the nation’s unemployment rate is one of the highest in the world’s labour ranking. There have, of course, been startling media reports about mass number of job applicants in the last one year and the paucity of available jobs often placed on advertisements.
Very recently was one captioned: “16,000 apply for 100 vacancies in federal judiciary”. A source close to the Federal Judicial Service Commission(FJSC), had said that the commission was deeply worried by the mammoth crowd that gathered on daily basis at its office to collect and submit employment application forms for just a handful of vacant positions in the judiciary.
If this came to altruistic Nigerians as a rude shock, then the report by the business magnate, Aliko Dangote, Chairman of Dangote Group, late last year that 13,000 applicants, including six Ph.D holders, 704 Masters and 8,460 Bachelor degree holders, applied for the position of Truck Drivers would, without doubts, be both devastating and discomfiting at least to those who appreciate the worth of the degrees mentioned. For the cynical, however, who may view Dangote’s bombshell as an expensive joke, the germane development witnessed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) also towards the end of year 2012 could be a convincing fact that the labour market in the nation is a grey area to the large chunk of graduates.
INEC claimed to have received, with shock, 800, 000 graduate applications to fill only 1,500 available job slots in the commission. Greatly alarmed, an official of the commission was quoted as saying that “INEC placed vacancy advertisements in newspapers on November 19, inviting applications for the positions of legal officers, system analysts, architects, engineer.... Only applicants, with first degrees, Higher National Displomas and National Certificate of Education (NCE) were invited to submit applications, but INEC was alarmed by huge inflow of applications into its website as well as the calibre of applicants, some of whom are clearly over qualified for jobs applied for. In fact, there were Ph D holders among the applicants, some of them have two masters degrees.
Without being euphemistic, the foregoing sadly graphically depicts the economic situation in the country and what employers encounter any time applications are invited to fill certain positions. The situation is disturbingly compounded by the flippant attitude of the government to the development.
In diagnosing the ailment of unemployment, certain questions strive for prominence here. How come the rate of joblessness is higher in Nigeria than some other countries, even in Africa, despite robust human endowments and rich natural resources including petroleum, gas and arable land for Agriculture? Are the certificate-carrying youths thronging the labour markets bereft of vocational skills for self-employment? Or is it over population? What efforts has the government that boasts of super-rich politicians made to arrest the embarrassing situation? Where, lastly, do we place the blame?
In unequivocal terms, the nation started grooming mass soldiers of unemployed youths and at the same time inadvertently releasing the plagues of social vices currently bringing the nation to its knees when attention was diverted from Agriculture following discovery of oil some years back. Prior to this, there were farmers, artisans, building contractors, traders, sculptors, among others who were very comfortable and fulfilled in their chosen vocations. Then, little emphasis was placed on certificates and the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP) was one of the best in the world. It would be painfully recalled that Malaysia, one of the world’s greatest producers of palm oil today, took seeds from Nigeria in the 1960’s. While the country thrives on Agriculture, Nigeria wallows in the mire of poverty and recession.
No sooner was oil discovered in Nigeria than events that informed our present predicament as a nation started taking place. The first ugly development that cast pal on the nation was unbridled crave for power in a bid to share from the oil boom. This unarguably explains series of ethnic clashes, election violence and military coups in the country. In the event of inability to realise power ambition, many youngsters opted for certificates in engineering, petroleum and other related courses even when training facilities were grossly lacking.
Thus today, attentions are largely diverted from farming and other naturally endowed vocations. Instead, we have sit-tight politicians, corrupt in nature and draining from the oil pipes while youths, allured by stupendous wealth flaunted by the politicians, pile up certificates to either have a place in the corridors of power or get posh jobs in the multinational companies without vocational skills to eke out self-sustaining livelihood. The frustrated ones, we need not say, are the Boko Haram members, kidnappers, militants, armed bandits, cyber fraudsters and criminals whose heinous activities clad the nation in bad attires.
To put things right and ensure gainful employments for all and sundry, however, power should be made less attractive and politics will no longer be a do or die political thing in Nigeria. This should be followed by a systemic overhaul of our university curricular to incorporate massive vocational trainings. While a revert to the practice of Agriculture should be non -negotiable, government should massively pump money towards reviving Agriculture industry and ensure loans are made available to youths willing to embark on self-employed adventure. While industrial preference for certificates should be minimised, skills and intelligence should be requirement for employment.
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