Even though it is widely acclaimed that one of the most glaring failures of the Nigerian government is seen in the huge unemployment rate, this revealing piece shows why the problem may be with the youth himself.
Some time ago, Achaki, an extraordinarily enterprising young man was privileged to be part of a Panel of Interviewers who sat down to screen job seekers to determine their eligibility for appointment.
Achaki was thrilled. The fact that he was selected by his company to be part of the Interviewers gave him an exhilarating feeling of importance that made him feel proud. He was still new at the company, having spent only two months, yet he was considered good enough to be among those who will screen other prospective employees. He was ecstatic!
However, Achaki’s euphoria was short-lived for two reasons:
Firstly, when he saw that thousands turned out to interview for positions numbering just over 450, it made him sad. The stark reality of the unemployment condition in Nigeria stared at him full in the face with a renewed zest and gusto.
Secondly, the opportunity helped him have another glimpse at the deteriorating situation of mediocrity that has come to define the Nigerian graduate.
Before they were done interviewing a quarter of the number of applicants who had gathered for the interview, Achaki and the other Interviewers were already filled up to the brim with disgust. Achaki’s Interviewer colleague who sat closest to him by his right turned sharply to him
“Wait a minute” she said, with her forehead forming creases of disbelief “are we talking to Nigerian University Graduates or to Secondary School Students?”
“I was just about to ask the same question” Achaki answered her with a chuckle that was no mirth but a concerted effort to conceal his irritation.
Achaki left that interview session with a heavy weight tucked within the walls of his heart. He had discovered something new; even though he had always known that lots of Nigerian graduates are pushed into the labour market half-prepared, he had no idea that the situation had degenerated to the point where B.Sc, B.A., B.Mech, L.L.B holders and so on would not be able to put forth a sound and impressively original idea using the English language.
It is now an accepted reality that Nigerian universities churn out graduates who have barely begun to realize what they went to school to do. Year after year, we see them wearing Khaki uniforms, walking the streets with heavy jungle boots claiming to be in service to their fatherland. Year after year, these youths are abruptly left on their own, without warning, to waiver in the wind of uncertainty amidst the heavy traffic in the Nigerian labour market with no clue to what they are supposed to do, and so year and after year, the number of unemployed people keep on rising like sea waves high with a tsunami.
By reason of the fact that graduates are pushed out into the Nigerian labour market without adequate preparation, their employability falls without weight on the scales of reality. You cannot put into use what does not fit a particular kind of work. Time and time again, employers report that there are vacant positions without people to fill them and yet we have a countless number of people endlessly seeking for work to do.
What then is the problem?
First let’s talk about the Nigerian student.
Some years ago, two friends spent time together in a university in North-Western Nigeria. Etema and Ajogwu were in the same department and were good friends. However, Etema always had better grades than Ajogwu, even though he didn’t spend as much time and effort preparing for tests and exams as Ajogwu did.
One day Ajogwu decided to find out the secret behind Etema’s ‘success’ and his findings shocked him beyond words. He discovered that Etema had always paid his way through exams, buying lecturers off and at other times, carried bits of paper with ‘expo’ into the exam hall, coming out uncaught each time.
As time went on, Ajogwu discovered it wasn’t just Etema who engaged in such acts but that much more than half of his classmates didn’t find it a big deal to pay to pass.
After they graduated, Etema bagged a First Class degree while Ajogwu held on tight to his Second Class lower and they all went home.
Almost two years after their graduation, Ajogwu who was already the founder of a major Youth Development Forum met Etema in Enugu state and he was a sorry sight to behold. Etema had been employed by four different companies who had each laid him off after only a few months. Now he was walking the streets with barely enough for dinner.
Ajogwu knew what had happened to Etema; the young man had a good result and that attracted employers to him, but Etema’s grades were not really his because he didn’t work for them; he only paid for them and so even though he passed the courses, he didn’t learn the skills that they passed to him. Employers soon found out his emptiness and threw him out.
This is the sorry case of many a Nigerian graduate today.
The Nigerian student is filled with a lack of interest for what he has gone to school to do. What we have now is utter reluctance to go for lectures, and a great love for pastimes which includes too frequent visits to social networking sites to ‘while away time’. The Nigerian student is lazy and does not want to stand up to his challenges. He prefers to cheat his way through school like Etema and come out half-baked to face reality. Schools of higher learning are packed with mediocre students because these students cheated to pass WAEC and JAMB, and because they are now conversant with cheating, they invent newer ways of smuggling in papers into the exam halls to pass the test. It is pathetic and if this continues, then there is no relief yet in sight for the excruciatingly demeaning state of unemployment in Nigeria.
While Nigerians complain and yell at the government for not providing jobs for the people, we think that the problem is not just from the government, it is first from the job seeker himself.
If our Nigerian undergraduates can groom themselves for the tasks ahead in the world of reality outside the four walls of the classroom; if they can accept that the campus is not just a place for laughter, play and fashion parade; if they can see that they have a duty to themselves and the nation, we think that the Nigerian labour market will not be so much of an eye sore.
Now that the acclaimed change has come to Nigeria with the new government, everyone expects a sharp and dramatic rise in the number of jobs and opportunities for employment in Nigeria. Undergraduates and unemployed graduates particularly feel that their time has come! However, the change that must happen is not the one that they expect President Buhari to bring; the real change is the one that involves them knowing that they have a duty to evolve from their ordinariness! The real change is the one that involves them seeing that they have their own futures in their hands and that they have the power to give themselves whatever they want with adequate preparation.
Only with this kind of change can any progress be made.
Dear Nigerian youth, stand up and work!!!