The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) recently released a frightening figure of graduate unemployment in the country. According to the Director-General of the organisation, Mr. Samuel Adedolun, over 200,000 graduates with NYSC discharge certificates issued in the last five years are unemployed!
This crop of educated manpower is roaming about the streets apparently doing nothing to contribute to national development. They have become burdens to their families instead of helping to mentor others to grow. Some have resorted to criminal activities, which is why the rate of armed robbery has increased sharply. We are facing a crushing economic depression consequent upon the implementation of policies that have no direct positive effect on the populace.
The NDE's figure was obtained through a national registration of the unemployed. According to the Director-General, the NDE has concluded the registration of unemployed Nigerians in 8,812,000 wards nationwide. Whereas the total figure of the unemployed is not yet released, there is reason to believe that it would be alarming. Some people may wonder why the NDE is fiddling with unemployment figures rather than announcing the number of people it has employed. There is a misconception about what the NDE stands for. Many people think that the NDE was established to give employment, which is not actually the case.
The NDE was established by the federal government to empower the unskilled youths and other members of the public to acquire marketable skills that would help them set up their own businesses. The organisation pursues this goal by organising training sessions in collaboration with different organisations. The thrust of NDE's work is to promote entreprenuership among the unemployed.
As a matter of fact, there is nothing wrong in creating an organisation like the NDE to help the unemployed youths get skill. But looking at the harsh economic situation we face in this country, one would appreciate that there is a big gap between acquiring skill and employing that skill in income generating economic activity. For example, imagine the NDE training a batch of youths to acquire basic computer skills. That should not be the end of the exercise. The NDE should be in a position to enhance the chances of those that have gone through its training and acquired to engage in appropriate work.
There are two ways by which the trainees can be engaged: One is to get formal employment in the job market. This is the traditional major employer, which unfortunately is no longer available. Apparently, the job market is saturated and can only employ a handful of job seekers. The second option is for the trainee to set up his or her own small-scale business. There are unlimited opportunities in this direction. It is also the goal of NDE that those it trained should set up their own business. But experience shows that it is at this stage that the trainees get stuck. They would need some loan to start off any business they so desire. How to overcome this hurdle should be a policy issue.
It would be recalled that the defunct Peoples' Bank of Nigeria (PBN) was set up alongside the NDE to provide funding for enterprises being set up by graduates of NDE training programmes. Sadly enough, the PBN wobbled and failed to live up to expectation. As a result, government scrapped it. The scrapping of the PBN, which was meant to empower people in the rural areas and tackle unemployment, truncated the efforts of the NDE. Consequently, those trainees who would have benefited from the micro-finance of the bank could no longer access such loan.
Since then, there has been no other policy to address the entrepreneur development programme of the NDE. It is not clear if the micro-finance banks currently being pushed forward by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are meant to serve that purpose. The truth is that there are many youths out there willing to set up their own enterprises but who cannot get needed financial support to do that. This explains why there are millions of unemployed youths in the country.
Based on the foregoing, it is clear that the NDE was not set up to address the unemployment crisis plaguing university graduates and graduates of other tertiary institutions. Since the organisation focuses on organising training programmes mainly for the unskilled, there is apparently no room for university graduates in its scheme. Without being expanded, the NDE is not equipped to cater for the needs of tertiary institution graduates. Having acquired skills, what the graduates need is a policy framework that would give them financial support to start up their own businesses. The absence of such a framework explains why there are thousands of graduates wasting away five years after graduation without any job or the capacity to stay on their own business.
Given the adverse economic situation in the country, it is foolhardy to expect miracle to happen in the employment market that would absorb the teeming unemployed youths. This is because the industrial sector is comatose. There is no productivity. The real sector is not working. The unemployment crisis is responsible for the insecurity in the country. An idle man is the devil's workshop. The millions of unemployed youths are easily lured into all kinds of crime. The entire country is under the siege of robbers. The crisis in the Niger Delta has become an amalgam of ethnic, economic and political forces contending over resource control. The presence of thousands of idle youths has worsened the restiveness in the area.
The unemployment crisis in the country remains the most potent factor that is fuelling crisis across the federation. There is no doubt that youth unemployment and poverty pose a great challenge to security and stability in the country. The trend sharply contrasts the targeted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that require governments "to develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work". But available evidences show that the strategies being adopted by the government have not been effective. In fact, they have pushed the number of the unemployed to higher levels. This is further worsened by the lack of definite youth engagement programmes. The youths are apparently socially excluded.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), "the link between youth unemployment and social exclusion has been clearly established; an inability to find job creates a sense of vulnerability, uselessness and idleness among young people and can heighten the attraction of engaging in illegal activities". Thus, as earlier indicated, most of the crimes witnessed today in the country owe much to youth unemployment.
The high rate of unemployment in the country can be attributed to structural transformation of the economy in the last two decades. During this period, the country was left to the forces of free global economy with the hope that this will increase growth and reduce unemployment and poverty. Most of government policies implemented during this period addressed macro economic issues that have little impact on the people. The micro economic issues that should address real problems at the grassroots were ignored. It is now obvious that the macro economic policies alone cannot solve the fundamental issues of unemployment and poverty. What this requires is a re-thinking in the way things have been done so far. There is need for a fundamental change spurred by a drastic policy re-orientation focusing on the people and their basic needs. There can be no real development in the country when the masses of the people are wallowing in abject poverty and deprivation.
The issue of graduate unemployment can be addressed through a conscious programme that would enhance the capacity of graduates to start up businesses without many hurdles. To achieve this, the NDE should be expanded to facilitate graduate enterprise development. Under the programme, prospective graduates who wish to set up their own businesses would be required to develop the proposals of what they intend to do. The micro-finance banks must play a major role in this framework. The NDE would act as the clearinghouse and intermediary between the prospective graduate entrepreneur and the finance banks for purposes of securing loan for the start up of the business.
As the Yar'Adua government marks its first 100 days in office, it is imperative that both the federal and state governments should give room for fundamental changes in policies to more humane micro-economic social development framework that is directed to job-led economic growth. An employment plan should be drawn at all the tires of government. Without such a framework, as wealth continues to concentrate in few peoples' hands, persistent sharp inequality would have dire consequences on human development, economic growth and social stability.
By Luke Onyekakeyah
