The high rate of worrisome unemployment in the country has come into sharp focus recently as the Police Service Commission has received over seven-hundred thousand applications from candidates seeking employment into ten-thousand vacancies in the Nigeria Police Force.Compared to what has been recorded in 2004 when hundreds of thousand youths across the states besieged the headquarters of Nigerian Immigration Service in search of job with disastrous consequences, the ongoing recruitment exercise into the Police force is indeed heart-warming as it is faring well.
That has really demonstrated the enormity of the country’s unemployment figures, representing only those interested in becoming policemen compared to others in different fields of interests or other activities.
There are millions of unemployed youths in both rural and urban centers that languish in their uncomfortable abodes, cherishing the symbols of their indisputable qualifications for getting job, but failed to secure a placement of their choice in any sphere of human endeavor. This is mainly because Nigerian youths are spoilt brats who prefer white-collar jobs that are salaried to those that involve strenuous labor. When the military was in politics, many children were fascinated by them and have dreamt of joining the army to become military governors for instant fame and riches.
In fact, career in the army as well as in the quasi-military forces has always attracted many children who regarded the police, the immigration and customs services as El-Dorado — a place where great wealth can be acquired effortlessly.
At various times states and federal governments have rolled out impressive programmes on agriculture with specially designed packages to attract the youths into farming, to help ensure food security for the country and the production of sufficient produce for sustained industrial development, but such moves have always ended unsuccessfully with the youths declining all inducements for venturing into that noble profession.
As a result, unemployment figures have been rising astronomically each year with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of university graduates into the already saturated labor market. This is, indeed, quite demoralizing especially to the parents of the youths who had labored hard to ensure good university education for their children with the hope of taking over from them at their retirement. That has not always been the case. The parents would have to continue struggling in their advanced age, providing for their unemployed graduate children who may not be amenable to taking up menial jobs; otherwise they will become vicious, wayward criminals. Against this background, therefore, it could be realized that unemployment rate, especially among the youths, has reached a frightening proportion requiring urgent attention.
Although unemployment is a global phenomenon, the Nigerian situation is critical and calls for an urgent attention.
Its menace keeps staring us in the face and has become a vigorous threat to the nation’s corporate existence as well as on its growth and development, yet we seem to dodge the reality of its consequences.
The ratio of existing vacancies to applicants continues to grow bigger and there are no signs or indications that that it could be narrowed soon without actually declaring a state of emergency on the alarming rate of unemployment. This is more so because successive governments have not endeavored to establish new industries that will absorb the large, fluid force of unemployed youths whose great potentials have continued to wither away without any conscious effort from any quarter to tap or exploit it to the fullest.
What they had particularly done was to embark of privatization exercise of existing government companies with a view to squander the proceeds in other worthless and unproductive venture with a view to obtaining certain percentages as illegal commission.
It is however, gladdening that with the encouraging economic programmes put up by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration ostensibly to redress certain problems associated with mass unemployment in the country, the hope for the teeming unemployed youth is being rekindled. Its commendable initiative in remedying power problems by reinvigorating the sector, coupled with its giant strides in reviving the railways, as well as diversifying to agriculture, will certainly assist in revamping the moribund economy and create increased activities that will foster rapid industrialization and increased opportunities for employment.
In fact, very soon the results of President Buhari’s foreign visits intended to fix the economy will bear dividends as hordes of foreign companies are arriving, to either invest in different enterprises or establish ventures that will provide tens of thousands of jobs to the indigenes of the areas they are located.
With the enabling environment created by the governments, a new economic climate is coming into being, attracting the companies that had left Nigeria’s shores to return and resume their businesses. As it is now, Nigerians have begun to discern a silver lining on the troubled cloud and have been witnessing fresh signs for the nation’s quick recovery from its economic and social woes. They are now no longer decrying the hardships that characterize their struggles, having realized how the government’s new policies have given their country wings to fly and usher in the prospects to end the scarcity that had earlier threatened to make life difficult for them.
