by
Emmanuel Onwubiko and Nneka Okonkwo
From
all indication, youth unemployment is a menace in Nigeria and
constitutes a real danger and a threat to Nigeria’s democracy.
IN Nigeria, democracy has been restored over a decade ago, with so
much hope and expectations by the people. For instance, it is assumed
that with democracy, people would be free to choose their leaders and
representatives and hold them accountable for the overall objective of
fast-tracking development and improving the general living condition of
the masses. This expectation is not misplaced, considering that Nigeria
has abundant human and natural resources in different parts of the large
land mass that ranks as the largest black nation in the world, with
estimated population running to 150 million.
However, the reality on ground has shown that this expectation is yet
to be realised and just as the globally respected writer and novelist,
Professor Chinua Achebe wrote in his scholarly booklet titled “The
Trouble with Nigeria”, Nigeria’s fundamental crisis of development lies
squarely with non-visionary political leadership because there is
absolutely nothing wrong with our geography or climate as a country
created by God. Hence, the growing sense of despondency among the masses
and especially the younger population who ought to be groomed and
economically empowered to become very productive and contribute
significantly to Nigeria’s economic advancement. In other countries in
North Africa like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya where dictators held sway for
over three decades, people made up largely of restive youths have
revolted against the system and in some cases have successfully removed
such dictatorship to make way for the new found democracy even though in
places like Tunisia and Egypt, the expectations of the revolutionary
youthful populations have not been sufficiently met because some forces
are attempting to hijack the outcome of the popular revolutions to
install their reactionary elements to control the political process.
The major concern here therefore is given the kind of violent
agitations that pervaded the above mentioned countries with relatively
better living conditions than Nigeria, what is the guarantee that large
army of unemployed youths will not engage in activities that would
undermine the stability of democracy in Nigeria?
The problem of chronic youth unemployment is very evident in Nigeria.
Every year thousands of graduates are churned out for whom there are no
jobs and the relevant government agencies like the Federal Ministry of
Labour/Productivity and that of youth development have spectacularly
failed to formulate and implement pro-job creation policies to
sufficiently galvanise the innate talents and overwhelming energy levels
of these young Nigerian graduates of universities and other tertiary
institutions.
We need to recall the ignominious role played by restive youth in the
oil rich Niger Delta region prior to the Federal Government’s
declaration of general amnesty and we need to also know that majority of
the foot soldiers of the armed Islamic insurgents in the North waging a
war of attrition against the Nigerian state and other non-state actors
like Christians and moderate Muslims are youthful persons who claimed to
be unhappy with the status quo. For Awogbenle and Iwuamadi (2010), the
statistics from the Manpower Board and the Federal Bureau of Statistics
showed that Nigeria has a youth population of 80 million, representing
60 per cent of the total population of the country. Also, 64 million of
them are unemployed, while 1.6 million are under-employed.
The rising tide of unemployment and the fear of a bleak future among
the youth in Nigeria, have made them vulnerable to the manipulations of
agents “provocateurs” as can be seen from the increasing cases of
violent crimes such as armed kidnappings for ransom, targeted/hired
assassinations and other manifestation of organised crimes like
drug/human trafficking that have become unprecedented in our clime. Have
we ever wondered why armed kidnappings seem to have become larger than
life in our modern day Nigeria? The shock however is that governments at
every level in Nigeria pay lip service to actually providing workable
panacea to these disturbing cases of youths’ involvement in violent
crimes.
From all indication, youth unemployment is a menace in Nigeria and
constitutes a real danger and a threat to Nigeria’s democracy. Funny
enough, the ruling party at the federal level in Nigeria, the Peoples
Democratic Party still live in denial of the fact that they have misled
Nigeria into the current situation of near-anarchy and lawlessness
characterised by mass poverty, and collapsing infrastructure. The
political party recently celebrated 14 years of its creation but was
unable to justify the way the huge financial resources amassed by
Nigeria from export of crude oil were expended. There is total
non-existence of accountability and transparency on the part of very
important government agencies such as the NNPC regarding how huge sums
of public fund grew wings and disappeared into private pockets of highly
placed government officials.
The youth perceive the two anti-graft agencies in Nigeria as sleeping
on duty while politicians steal Nigeria blind. Even other political
parties that control other layers of government in the South West, South
East and South West have failed to account for huge resources that
ought to be spent to procure vital infrastructure to service the basic
needs of the poor and impoverished masses made up largely of the youth.
Such tendencies can give rise to violent youth restiveness if not
comprehensively tackled.
Therefore, to massively curb youth restiveness, officials should
among other pragmatic and practical steps: increase allocations and
realistically/transparently utilise these financial resources for youth
development and youth-related programme such as capacity building
workshops and the delivery of skills on entrepreneurial leadership for
the youth of Nigeria; ensure accessibility of information for skill
acquisition, self employment, job opportunities, and self-reliance among
youth through seminars, workshops, and lectures whereby youth are
selected on merit to attend and benefit from the outcome and inputs into
such empowerment programmes.
Importantly, government must not relent in the crusade against all
forms of corruption in public and private lives in Nigeria; Government
must play its constitutional role by creating enabling socio-economic
and political environment, including the provision of infrastructure to
make industrial climate investment friendly, and the current scramble by
former government officials to acquire public assets through the
tainted privatisation agenda must be discouraged because if such
impunity is allowed it will become a bad signal that those who go into
government offices and steal the public blind would be rewarded with
ownership of government funded public assets such as the facilities of
the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) for which the media recently
reported that two former military heads of state and a former governor
are in the race of their lives to buy into.
These recommendations good as they are will not make any meaning if
government officials known to have stolen public fund are left without
bringing them to face the consequences of their dastardly criminal act
of corruption and economic crime. This anti-graft posture, if vigorously
and transparently pursued will encourage investors to invest and
thereby create jobs in order to absorb the unemployed youths. Those
genuine investors who want to invest must not be discouraged through
bureaucracy and bribe-induced delays because this is one factor that has
continued to discourage foreign direct investments since even the World
Bank study recently confirmed that most businesses are compelled to pay
bribe by government officials in Nigeria. The ease of doing business
must be made transparent and open so that the enabling environment for
jobs to be created for the youth could be encouraged in Nigeria.
Finally, we believe that unless a reasonable standard of living is
guaranteed and equitably provided in Nigeria for the youth, they will
continue to tend towards violence and crime. Social order can only be
promoted in Nigeria when “children, young persons and the aged are
protected against any exploitation whatsoever and against moral and
materialistic neglect.” Only by squarely providing the necessary
economic, social and political support for the youth and by gainfully
engaging them in nation building can we begin to break the link between
youth and violence in Nigeria.
