Tag: direction

The Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics recently informed us that 60.9% of Nigerians live in ‘absolute poverty’, and that more of us are daily falling into that category. One of our former presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo, has warned repeatedly that youth unemployment in our country is over 70%, stating that it is a major factor of our poverty and that Nigeria, for this reason, is sitting on a time bomb. Most Nigerians don’t understand the enormous weight that youth unemployment means. Our youths (aged 17 to 38) constitute the overwhelming majority of our population. Some statisticians say that people of this age bracket constitute as much as over 60% of our population. But they are not merely the majority amongst us, they are also the naturally strongest, most dynamic and most capable of production. They produce and nurse most of our babies and therefore have an enormous impact on our national character. They are the most agile, most inquisitive, most inventive and most venturesome section of our population. When we say that 70% of them are unemployed, we are saying something of tremendous importance. We are saying that we are losing the productive contribution of the largest, strongest, most dynamic and most productive section of our population. Rather than receiving production from them, we are having to provide for them from the little that the rest of us are able to produce. That is a major reason why more and more of us are falling into abject poverty. Massive youth unemployment is not something we should even think of living with. It is too dangerous. For instance it is not only robbing us of productivity, it is also plunging our society into crime. Denied productive employment, the agile hands and legs of our youth are producing aberrant behaviour in all sorts of fearful directions. As a result, informed observers classify Nigeria as one of the most unsafe places in the world in peacetime.

For decades, the truth of our existence as a country has been hidden from us (especially from the leaders and rulers of the nation) by the large revenues from crude oil. Our federal rulers could look at the endless seas of cash brought in by the rents and royalties of crude oil and delude themselves that we are a rich country. Our state governors and local government managers could go to Abuja and return with fat cheques and also deceive themselves that we are a rich country. Upon that whole edifice of self-deception, they proceeded to build a gigantic culture of public corruption. But now, the oil bonanza seems to be vanishing. Our self- deception is about to come to a crashing halt. We are obviously about to confront some very unpleasant truths as a nation. It is time for us to rush back to our youths – the most productive part of our economy- and call upon them to help. A bold new direction is urgently called for in our economy.

Fortunately at this critical moment, we have a president who has promised change and has declared war on the culture of public corruption. It is therefore greatly welcome that President Muhammadu Buhari, in his first budget, is promising major steps towards youth development in order to empower and employ our youths. We must pray that he is able to push it as fast and as far as the situation demands. While he and his men are putting together the elements of the programme on youth development, I would like to offer him the suggestion that he should look at what Singapore did between 1965 and 1975. By 1965 Singapore was a desperately poor province of the Federation of Malaysia. It had no resources in land, forests, minerals, or even soft water. It was riddled with violent, corrupt and riotous politics. Almost all its youths were unemployed and unemployable. Crime was rampant. To do business at all, business owners usually had to surrender to extortion and make regular secret payments to criminal gangs. Masses of youths frequently rioted in the streets and the federal government regularly deployed security forces there to tackle the riots. One huge riot in 1965 went on for three months! As a result of this constant trouble, the federal prime minister proposed at the parliament that Singapore be expelled from the federation. Parliament overwhelmingly approved and Singapore suddenly found itself a separate country without any preparation. No country can be poorer than that. The leading Singaporean politician, a lawyer named Lee Kuan Yew, wept as he made the devastating announcement to his country. “For me and for Singapore”, he sobbed over the radio, “this is a day of anguish”.

Yet, by 1975, 10 years later, Singapore had become one of the most successful economies in the world.  By 1976 when I visited Singapore, most of the world was already celebrating Singapore as “the Asian Success Model”. So how did Singapore do it? The central piece in their programme of development was to focus on the youth and to call them out to work. But first as preliminary, all the politicians agreed to commit to a responsible, cautious and orderly politics. As the country’s partisan and inter-ethnic politics simmered down, the youth riots gradually waned too. Then the government and leaders agreed on a bold new agenda to make the youths employable. Various institutions were created to teach modern job skills. Some businesses were licensed to teach job skills in their premises under government supervision.  All of the training was accompanied by very serious programmes of work ethics. To prepare the younger children for the system, very serious effort was put into improving education at the primary and secondary levels. Within years, Singapore’s workers had become known worldwide as skilled workers and highly dependable employees. As a result, businesses hurried to establish branches in Singapore and investors rushed there. Singapore’s people themselves then developed confidence to start businesses. By and by, a strong programme of infrastructural development followed. Singapore has continued to prosper. Its workmen are proud in their skills and in their efficiency and high work ethics. They are known to always seek to improve their service in all directions. Singapore’s educational system is now widely regarded as one of the best in the world. In fact, in education, this little country has much to teach the world, including even the giant, United States of America.

In short, Nigeria’s youth development programme must focus on a sound combination of job and entrepreneurial skills and work ethics amongst our youths. It is not enough for a young, agile, intelligent and creative person to have good job skills, it is also critically important that he should be loyal to the success of his employers. A great deal of unemployment among our youth is a result of a lack of modern job skills. Even the job opportunities that are available struggle to find skilled workers. For instance our cities are expanding tremendously and that means a lot of jobs in the building trade. Sadly, it is well known that builders these days are having to recruit workmen from other countries.  A foreign company that won a contract to clean and plumb ships in the Apapa ports just could not find suitable Nigerian plumbers and had to recruit low level plumbers from their own country in Europe. It is also well known that there is a myth in Nigeria and abroad, that Nigerian workers are too disloyal to be employed. Of course the myth is unfair to a lot of our youth, but that’s what myths do – they include the good with the bad. Our youths desperately and urgently need a massive national programme of job and entrepreneurial skills and work ethics. We are well able to turn our economy around in just a few years. One must add of course is the promoter of this programme, each state must be used as the development unit in it and the state authorities empowered for that role. I hope President Buhari’s people are reading this. We must all wish them good success.