Rethinking The Unemployment Crisis
The question begging for an answer becomes: Are there no longer humans wants to be solved? Or is the mind of the average Nigerian no longer capable of conceiving bankable ideas that can create career opportunities?
Or is it the government’s laziness?
What the high rate of unemployment in the country today truly depicts is that both the federal, state and local government as well as the private sector lacked the will-power to continue to initiate ideas that are capable of providing solution to the numerous human wants of contemporary existence while providing employment for the unemployed; in the process. As the APC-led government boasts about lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty; it is necessary they understood what job creation required.
Since 2015, Nigeria has witnessed an onslaught against business establishments, under-funding of relevant government agencies responsible for the salaries of many and stringent multiple tax regimes that have compounded the dilemma of the average Nigerian of productive age. Just recently on February 1, the implementation of the new VAT of 7.5% commenced and, you get the impression that even though the government wanted to create jobs, it’s policies are destroying the existing ones.
Would it not have made sense if more jobs were created instead of increasing the VAT? This is the reason I urge that government needed to first understand what unemployment was in order to know what job creation entailed. A few years ago, following the inability of the Nigeria Telecommunication (NITEL) to generate returns on investment for government, there became the need to liberalize that sector.
And, it turned out that the liberalization of the sector alone created hundreds of direct jobs as well as thousands of indirect jobs. That was an eye-opener which many believe should guide the government to do an overhaul in agencies like the Nigeria Police, the electricity sector, the transport and the housing sectors. Insecurity today begs for more police personnel and jobs can be created while tackling insecurity.
What can the government do to grow the rice industry? A price intervention on rice is urgently required if the government would kill smuggling and unlock the potentials of the home-grown brands! You see why the government – in my humble opinion – cannot create jobs unless it understood unemployment?
And, if Nigeria’s existence in this age of limitless opportunities still attracted an unfriendly unemployment statistics, what other evidence do we need to show that the employment generator (our mind) in us was sleeping and needed to be urgently awakened?
- Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh; Abuja
