Students without ambition is a popular phrase in most Nigerian higher institutions. It is linked or associated with students who are always found sitting under the trees at various locations within the serenity of the schools gisting, eating, drinking, and pretending to be enjoying campus life.
We were told that those are sons and daughters of wealthy individuals and politicians who don’t know what brought them to school. This group of people have little or no clue on what’s going on currently in the labour market and even if they know it does not matter. Their parents have the necessary connections with political office holders and have the financial capability to secure jobs for their warsd. They were told right from home that white-collar jobs are always available for them whenever they graduate, irrespective of grade.
Others however view them as students who have tried many times but failed due to their inability to cope with life’s challenges on campus or failed to withstand the pressure and rigours of academic pursuits or are influenced by social vices. Therefore, they choose to spend most of their time under the trees enjoying campus social life and neither attending lectures nor writing examinations, making no effort to graduate from school.
All the categories of the aforementioned students fully involved in this act lack foresight although in some instances one cannot blame them for their actions or inactions because most Nigerian youths these days have no ambition.
Even those that were opportune to have attended school and did wonderfully well, ended up coming back to struggle at home with nothing to do with the certificates and have nowhere to apply the little knowledge acquired.
The area of academics is the only possible way for the children of the poor to pursue careers and maybe end.up becoming successful in some fields but due to the corrupt system, even that one is now a mirage.
Consequently, the situation has become more complex and complicated to the extent that those young people have lost hope because the system doesn’t warrant them to look for anything better even in the future.
Believe me, no human being exists with no ambition but sometimes the situation forces individuals to sit back and look for others that passed through. The system forces the sons and daughters of the poor in our societies to have no ambition.
Besides, the labour market is saturated with graduates from various higher institutions of learning roaming the streets looking for all possible ways of.employment opportunities. Unfortunately, some fall victims to fraudsters that usually collect huge amounts of money and end up running away in the process. Imagine after going through thick and thin of academic pursuit and with a good certificate, a graduate still faces a hostile open society.
Therefore, it’s pertinent for the government to create employment opportunities for the huge number of unemployed Nigerian graduates roaming the streets. Government should formulate policies and programmes that will reduce the rate of unemployment to the bearest minimum because already even those that are doing well academically are being discouraged and this is surely detrimental to the peace and development of the country.
Mubarak Shuaybu Shelleng,Department of Mass Communications,University of Maiduguri,Maiduguri, Borno state
