It is now official: over 50 per cent of Nigeria’s estimated 180 million people are miserable and live in misery and poverty. With grim figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which put Nigeria’s unemployment and under employment rate at 50 per cent, the latest assessment by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum (WEF) stated that Nigeria’s misery index has now reached 50%. The Misery Index is a measure of the unemployment rate compounded by inflation as a function of the consumer price index in line with the average cost of goods and services. According to WEF, Nigeria now sits on a tinder box, because of the magnitude of unemployment, especially among the youth, which has been compounded by the raging recession. The situation is too alarming and should immediately engage the attention of the APC government before its dire consequences consume the nation. To forestall the necessity of a civil crisis arising from this unprecedented scourge, it is imperative for the government to proclaim a state of emergency and tackle the problem head-on.
NBS figures show Nigeria’s unemployment rate was 12.1% in the first quarter of 2016, up from 10.4% in the fourth quarter of 2015, reaching the highest since December 2001. The unemployment rate rose to 13.3% in the second quarter of 2016 and then to 13.9% in the third quarter, and has been rising steadily as the economy is mired in recession. It is more worrisome because the largest segment of the population caught in this conundrum is the youth whose frustrations and juvenile propensities have often propelled them into unwholesome and criminal social vices like kidnapping, robbery, rape, bigotry and militancy. These are consequent vices Nigeria does not need to add to its already full plate of challenges. Certainly, the galloping trend of unemployment from one regime to another has indicted governments, agencies, parastatals and ministries in which trust has been reposed over the years. Unemployment may be a global problem but Nigeria is having more than her fair share of it.
This begs the question: what is responsible for the alarming rate of unemployment in Nigeria? Falling oil and gas output and their prices, declining foreign reserves, high foreign exchange rate, dwindling revenue accruals to the national treasury, inflation and negative economic growth have all combined to make production impossible and firing of workers, instead of hiring, the new order. Also, decrepit infrastructure, low productivity, stagnation in the real sector due to a hostile investment climate, general business depression in the private sector, poor quality and dysfunctional educational system that emphasizes university education at the expense of technical and vocational education that has created an army of unemployable graduates; population growth, neglect of agriculture, urban migration, and above all, the monster of corruption and mismanagement of the nation’s resources in the period of boom, without saving for the proverbial rainy day. Also, the problem of poor infrastructure, particularly poor electricity supply, poor road network, inadequate physical security and the high cost of finance have all combined to make the real sector produce below capacity.
The rising rate of unemployment has raised the stakes, increasing the risk of insecurity and militancy in major parts of the country and undermining government’s efforts at fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast, militancy and uprisings in the Southeast and other crimes like kidnapping and armed robbery. At a recent inauguration of a school-to-work training program for 150 secondary school pupils in Cross River State, Labor and Employment Minister, Chris Ngige underscored the need for youths to acquire skills like barbing, hair dressing, radio and computer repair and other artisanal technical skills that would make them self-reliant. This is too pedestrian and it speaks directly to government’s disingenuous approach to the problem of youth unemployment that demands a holistic structural realignment of the Nigerian economy.
The current unprecedentedly high level of unengaged workforce should be properly addressed with appropriate policies and investments by the government. To forestall any further increase in the unemployment rate, government should engage in policies that can improve opportunities and capabilities for Nigerians, while reducing vulnerabilities. Also, it should give incentives to private sector employers such as tax breaks. Attention should also be focused on youths who drop out of school with no or poor qualifications. Even those leaving with top grades should be trained to fit into the labor market. As such, the school curriculum must be revised and made to adapt to an economy that demands multiple and entrepreneurial skills. Industrial training must be encouraged to improve the employment prospects of young graduates.
Reviving the agric sector has become inevitable as exemplified by the Anchor Borrowers’ Program, where the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has set aside N40 billion for farmers at single digit interest rate of nine per cent. The initiative which is aimed at assisting rural agropreneurs’ move from subsistence to mechanized production is most commendable. However, the gains from such initiatives should be maximized through policy consistency. Thus, the government should not only concentrate on production, but also improve other aspects of the agricultural value chain such as storage, processing and market development.
There is an overwhelming need for an urgent structural diversification of the economy into agriculture, mining and tourism, an economy in which entrepreneurship and productivity replace cosmetic and phantom employment schemes without value creation. The governments at all levels should address youth employment by ensuring that agriculture is revived and made profitable. They should ensure that skills acquisition by those willing to acquire new skills is well democratized and encouragement should be given to entrepreneurial ventures. The problems of power, poor quality of education, low agricultural output and corruption must also be addressed if Nigeria as a country would ever succeed in putting its citizens back to work.
