Creating Jobs In Nigeria

Driving around Lagos on a normal weekday always makes my blood pressure rise a little. I keep asking myself what all these people are doing on the streets. They all look very busy and focused but if they were really productively employed will our economy not be in a much better shape?

However, when you move into all those side streets and alleyways of Lagos, you cannot help but thank God for those people who are moving around and apparently have something occupying their time. There are so many young and middle aged Nigerians who just exist from day to day.

I remember walking down a side street in Lagos once when a big Jeep passed me. One rough looking young man in front of me shouted something and all of a sudden, the street was full of at least 50 men who came out from only God knows where and surrounded the Jeep demanding that the ‘baba alaye’ in the owners corner pay them for driving down their street. I asked myself what all these men were doing in their houses on a Monday afternoon.

Young men with lots of energy just sitting around all day. God knows what they do at night and how they earn money to take care of the families they will surely create considering they don’t have any other thing to keep themselves busy. There is no doubt that the high crime rate is directly proportional to the number of such jobless youth.

The women are not doing much better. You just have to drive around Lagos at night to discover that thousands of young women are selling their bodies to make a living. It would have been nice to interview these people and find out whether they are just lazy or lack opportunities. However, I think it is pretty certain that if there were more jobs many of these people will not be on the streets. Not even the graduates of higher institutions are spared this embarrassment. Only a small percentage can be said to be fully employed. The majority are either under employed or not working at all.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics put the Nigerian unemployment rate at about 20%. I think this figure is very conservative. The NBS defines the unemployment rate as the percentage of Nigeria’s labour force that is qualified to work but did not work for, at least, 39 hours in the week preceding the survey. I am not a statistician but I believe that following that definition, the unemployment rate will be much higher than 20%. Dr. Olusegun Aganga has said that almost half of the young people aged between 15-24 and living in urban areas in Nigeria are jobless.

I know that our population is made up of mainly young people so I don’t see how we can have such a relatively low unemployment rate when so many young people are not working. The consequences can and are already being disastrous. A young person who has too much time on his hands is very likely to turn to illegal activity to keep himself busy and make some money. The internet fraud which is now widely associated with Nigerians is a result of the fact that many young unemployed Nigerians were looking for ways to get rich quick.

Mrs. Okonjo Iweala has stated that one of the benefits of the removal of fuel subsidy is to create jobs. I cant remember the exact figure she gave but it is way too small; a mere drop of water in an ocean. We need to give this problem much more priority. The solutions have been discussed over and over again. Various educational policies have been laid out but never implemented. What is clear is that this generation of young people is being corrupted because they are not being given the opportunity to make use of their energy and intelligence.

The Government has a grave responsibility to halt this degradation of our youth. Perhaps its time to stop working with theories and get down to the root of the problem. As I said, I don’t want to start proposing solutions now. This article is just a wake up call. Things are really bad. The future mothers of our children are losing their morals. The future fathers make a living by forcefully taking money from innocent people. I think this is even more dangerous to our society than the lack of money to continue paying subsidy indefinitely.

3 Comments

1. 

   FOLAVEROD

   January 25, 2012 at 7:58 pm

   GO TO ALLJOBSINNIGERIA.COM.NG FOR A JOB TODAY
2. 

   obinna chii-onyido

   January 27, 2012 at 7:10 pm

   visit naijatask.com. a new concept based technique that employs the use of ”certain task” in order to generate income for small businesses as well as generate short-term jobs for unemployed youths.
   • 

     Ellen

     February 9, 2012 at 8:47 pm

     realy i have heard of this naijatask.com and i like the idea….will signup and spread the word…