Ideas and debates for good governance in Africa.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Addressing the unemployment menace

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 figures might be higher now after three years, 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.
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.
Our country is lucky to be endowed with diverse and scores of resources - both human and material. However, due to gross mismanagement, profligate spending, graft 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 faced with the problem of unemployment, poverty and energy crisis, which experts believe are the major causes of the ethnic and religious crises we see in the North on one hand and Niger-Delta unrest.
Unemployment is a societal problem in any nation. That is why in advanced countries of the world, employment is made part of the government agenda, which candidates for political office have to make an issue for them to be taken serious by the electorate. Short-term or frictional unemployment can be tolerated but prolonged unemployment promotes and aggravates societal income and expenditure inequality, poverty, hunger, disease, anarchy, hooliganism, armed robbery and other vices. Yours sincerely believes that even the boko haram crises that ravaged the Northern part of the country was caused by unemployment and lost of hope from our youth.
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 led some people to take arms and risk loosing their lives as we have witnessed recently.
We have to point out that the situation we found ourselves today is as a result of I-don’t-care-attitude and recklessness exhibited by our political leaders in the last ten years. This is evident in the way and manner they handle issues of national importance especially the non-implementation of budgets or diverting state resources for personal use. Since the inception of our democracy ten 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.
This attitude has to stop. We need to have a budget that can be fully implemented and at the same time address our social and economic problems. Our vision of 20: 2020 is only feasible when our politicians show real commitment to addressing our collapsed infrastructures, revive polytechnics and vocational centres, and encourage small scale industries. There is need also for governments at various levels to initiate a labour policy that can link education with the demand of the market. The government have to reinvent system that can empower our youth to meet the changing needs of the economy, market and the expectation of the society.
It is the opinion of this writer that if government is serious about addressing unemployment problem then 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 and also address the issue of boko haram and other crises that are trying to consume the nation. But to do that, our leaders have to focus on substance, not spin.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Boko haram and the culpability of Northern elite

To say the generation of Northern elite, from 1970s through to 1980s to the present, have failed the region in virtually sphere, is an understatement. We have, in the North today elite, that takes pride in seeing fellow citizens live in abject poverty and squalor; elite that is happy to be the only educated and enlightened ones in their villages and neighbourhoods; elite that prides itself of being the richest in their communities, while majority can’t afford to feed their families. Northern elites have failed the North; I say this, times without number and with all sense of responsibility. We deserve better in the North.
The North has all that is needed to solve its economic and social problems. But look at the North today; go round the states, the local governments; check the indices of education, check the state of our public schools, hospitals, look at our industries, check out how we are fairing in agriculture, etc. But what are the elites doing? To secure a position in either the civil service or ensure winning the next election by hook or crook and afterwards abuse the public office by stealing public funds meant for education, for healthcare, for water.
When the events surrounding ‘boko haram’ started in some parts of the North, this time with violence in Bauchi, Maiduguri, Yobe and other parts, which claimed hundreds, I blamed no-one but the insensitive and greedy Northern elites. For the greater number of its independence, Nigeria has been ruled by Northerners, the only interlude was John Thomas U. Aguiyi-Ironsi, Earnest Shonekan and General Olusegun Obasanjo. But in all these years, the North remained a backward region in terms of education, and accounted for the highest level of poverty in the country. The region remained a leading region in producing the highest number of Almajirai, local manicurists, shoe shiners, manual labourers and all other menial jobs you can think of. One might argue that a typical Northerner is very difficult in accepting change, but the fact remains that if we removed the Sardauna and his friends of the First Republic, a generation that did their best in transforming the region, the generation of leaders that came after them have been a big disappointment. They failed to build from where the Sardauna and his associates stopped. Today what we have in the North is a social crisis, which, if not tackled, and tackled urgently, is going to consume the whole nation.
The nation’s problems of erratic power supply, poor drinking water, inefficient civil service, inadequate crime control, inadequate primary healthcare, and less than average educational system, compound already existing problems of the North - almajirci, street begging (a purely Northern affair), ‘maula’ and many other social and economic problems. And let truth be told, the ‘boko haram’ crisis was caused by nothing but the combination of poverty and bad governance. The trillions of naira that accrued from the federation account made available by the office of Accountant General of the Federation to the region through state and local governments is enough to pull the region out of these problems. But why are people in this region living in abject poverty? Take for instance the small Mikang local government in Plateau state, which received N762, 644.76 in 1999, today receives close to N100 million every month, but nothing would tell the difference between what accrue to the local council and the living conditions of the people of that area. One would be shocked if he checked the level of poverty indices in that local government area today.
Boko haram sect members, in their myopic thinking, were not fighting book, or Western education per se; it was the only way they felt they could fight the people that they saw as having hijacked a system and turned it, or misused it and turned the citizens into slaves in their own country.
We, as guides, have betrayed our people and failed to give them hope, a sense of belonging. Our governors have turned their states into fiefdoms. They steal with impunity. They arrogantly convert state resources to their own. They have deliberately destroyed the public school system, which most of these young people that found themselves in the boko haram sect are supposed to attend. They denied them access to education; they deprived them living a decent life.
Our elites need to have a re-think. Nigerian political leaders should learn to respect the wishes of their people. They should address basic issues that affect the people. They should go beyond promises by showing a serious commitment to efforts to address the problems of development. They should show real commitment to education, reviving our power sector, addressing the issue of unemployment by reviving our collapsed industries. The government has to show real commitment to fighting corruption and outright stealing of public funds. If not the crises we see in Niger Delta and the boko haram is just a sign of what is to come.