The 2009 budget

The 2009 budget, NDE and the challenges of unemployment in Nigeria
In a survey conducted by the Federal Ministry of Education sometimes in 2006, a very alarming rate of youth unemployment emerged in the country of over 60%, in which, although the accuracy of most of these data is still debatable, it is an indicator to the crisis in which this country finds itself. With a population of over 140 million and a youth population of 80 million, with 64 million unemployed, also with an estimated graduate turnover of over 600,000 graduates yearly, the Nigerian labour market is in crisis. We have every reason to sound an alarm bell especially in a situation where over 70% of working people are either unemployed or underemployed. For instance in the same report by the Ministry of Education, it is estimated that only 4 million people were on paid employment, while over 60% of youth ages 15-29 are unemployed.
The alarm in this respect is the non inclusion of measures to tackle this problem and related issues in our 2009 budget. The budget did not come out specifically to point out what is going to be done about the problem of unemployment. Our country is lucky to be endowed with multifarious and multitudinous resources - both human and material. However, due to gross mismanagement, profligate spending, kleptomania and adverse policies - sometimes misplaced priorities of various governments in Nigeria, these resources have not been optimally utilized on one hand and on the other they have not been adequately channelled to profitable investments to bring about maximum economic benefits. As a result of these, accumulated problems compounded the already existing problem. Today our country is not only faced with the problem of energy, Niger-Delta and other crisis but also bedevilled with the issue of unemployment and poverty.
Unemployment is a societal problem in any nation that is why in advanced countries of the world employment issues are used to determine candidate seriousness during his campaign. Short-term or frictional unemployment can be tolerated but prolonged unemployment promotes and aggravates societal income and expenditure inequality, poverty, hunger, disease, anarchy, thuggery, armed robbery and other vices.
Economic growth, which is supposed to be a solution to the problems of unemployment and poverty, appears not to be so in Nigeria. Nigeria’s official statistics show that economic growth has not always been accompanied by decline in unemployment and poverty. In fact, economic growth has even contributed to what we are seeing today of massive unemployment and poverty which is the genesis of some of the ethnic and religious crisis we have seen in recent times.
Generally, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the budget however, but we must bear two things in mind; one the recent financial crisis that affects the US and Europe, who are the major consumers of our oil and major players in the free market and the issue of non-implementation of budgets. Since the inception of our democracy about nine years ago, no single budget was implemented; in fact, it is even right to say that the country in the last few years was running a disorganised economy, where money was spent arbitrarily by an individual or group of individuals. One sad thing about all these is the fact that with all these alarming rate of unemployment in the country, nobody either in the National Assembly or the Executive remembers to include the issue of how to deal with unemployment in the 2009 budget.
For the nation to get out of the current unemployment crisis according to Dr. Magnus Kpakol , the National Coordinator, Poverty Eradication Programme, 3 million jobs are needed annually. Dr. Kpakol said the nation has suffered a prolonged unemployment problem due to the disequilibrium in the demand and supply at the labour market. Unemployment in Nigeria has persisted for too long or even more than that. Since the economic crisis of the early 80s and late 80s, when the nation's economy took a turn for the worse as world petroleum prices tumbled, the Nigerian currency became devalued, corruption became rampant, and the population of Nigeria ballooned at a breathtaking pace which was compounded by the Structural Adjustment Programme. Large number of graduates from our educational institutions, most of who are without any adequate skill joined the labour market annually. This led to what we are seeing today of large number of people roaming the streets of major cities in search of jobs.
One other thing that will be attributed to massive unemployment in this country is lack of harmonisation between what obtains in our higher institutions of learning, and the labour market demand. Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges of Education are offering courses not relevant in the labour market. The school curriculum has lost touch with reality. As soon as these graduates are employed they have to undergo training for them to fit in to the new places of work.
In order to eradicate unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, innovative methods are needed which require development and implementation of programmes that will directly benefit the poor, by restructuring sources of Nigeria's gross domestic product to significantly include variety of industries that are labour intensive, such as cottage industries. Making land available to private and public organizations to set up industries in the most economically depressed areas of Nigeria, and providing training in setting up industries (especially cottage industries) to unskilled or economically deprived Nigerians would make ownership of small scale industries a viable source of employment opportunities and building wealth for many Nigerians.
The agency that is mandated to offer this is the National Directorate of Employment. Established in 1989, the agency was to, among other things, design and implement programmes to combat mass unemployment, obtain and maintain a data bank on employment and vacancies in the country with a view to acting as a clearing house to link job seekers with vacancies in collaboration with other government agencies. NDE strategy has over the years been based on the need to train young graduates who were unemployed and needed reorientation and motivation to be self-employed and self-reliant. However, over the years the agency has made little impact to address the problem of unemployment because of poor implementation of policies, misplaced priorities and duplication of efforts on the part of those who were vested with the responsibility of running our affairs.
It is the opinion of this writer that if government is serious about addressing unemployment problem then as I said serious measures needs to be taken. We keep emphasizing anytime that unemployment and poverty can never be solved by distributing motorcycles to party loyalists or dashing them money, which are all short term strategies. The government has to strengthen agencies like the National Directorate of Employment, which has the capacity to offer millions of Nigerians the skills and knowledge to be self employed and self-reliant. The NDE offer people vocational and skills acquisition courses after which they will be offered soft loans to go and start their own businesses. Only God knows how many people these set of people will train in turn. If carefully supervised and monitored it will go a long way in reducing the rate of unemployment in the country. But to do that, our leaders have to focus on substance, not spin.
Kabiru Danladi.

Lawanti Village, KM25,
Along Gombe-Bauchi Road,
Akko LGA, Gombe State.
Kblondon2003@yahoo.com
08054546764,08035150369