The Nation Newspaper

Tag: missing link

  • Unemployment: The missing link

    SIR: As at last quarter of 2016, the Nigerian unemployment rate was 14.2%, which means in every 100 Nigerians at least 14 of them are unemployed, which means they are capable and willing to get a job, but they cannot get one. Policy makers and commentators usually rely on this misleading indicator, which is why most of unemployment policies do not work. The reported unemployment rate is discriminating, misleading, and conservative, because, it left out large number of other people who do not have job.

    There are people who are willing to get job, but they are not capable of getting one, there are others who are not capable and not willing to get job due to some conditions, and there are others who have a job that is equivalent to none. These set of people could be a liability to the economy and detrimental to the overall welfare of the economy, but many times they are excluded in designing and implementing policies or programmes in addressing unemployment. They need intervention too, and if they are not considered, the resultant negativity from their conditions will outweigh the resultant benefits of the interventions on the narrowed targeted unemployed. That is why unemployment has continued to be an issue for every administration. Accounting for these three missing set of people, real unemployment rate in Nigeria can reach up to 60%.

    In addressing unemployment, we have to look into the root cause of it. Increasing unproductive and inefficient population can make all employment policies ineffective. What economy wants is additional capable and quality population. Adding low quality population will add more burden to the economy. It is important to revisit how we manage our abundant and ever increasing population strategically; otherwise Law of diminishing return will apply or is applicable in Nigeria. To put it into perspective, it is like a manufacturing company employing and paying for labourers that can barely produce one product in a month. The company will soon become bankrupt.

    In addition to the growing unproductive population, most people wait and expect from government to fix their problems or provide solutions to their unemployment. Failure of people to take responsibility for their situations makes it impossible for government to fix everybody. Therefore, policies must be in place to enforce learning and self-responsibility. People must create vision and commit to becoming self-reliant, and this can only be possible if people are willing to learn and acquire knowledge and skills. This does not mean acquiring certificates, but relevant information and capacity to make them productive or employable.

    Emphasis on certificates when it comes to recruitment in public and private sectors is what led to the chronic and rising unemployment in Nigeria. The competition should be on skills and ability, not just on a paper. People do not carry papers along; they carry their brains and hands. So, invest and appreciate brains and hands, not papers. Leaders and employers should be rewarding skills not just qualification, we should be asking what can we do, not what qualification we have. How much we receive as income should be based on what we can do, not the degrees we have.

    The young generation should focus on value addition and improving their personal capacity and skills, not chasing for wealth at all cost. If we do that, we will improve the quality of our lives, create jobs and the wealth will come naturally. We will have to go out of our comfort zone, get rid of egoism, take menial jobs, learn little skills, and be willing to acquire relevant education and skills.

    Finally, empowerment programmes should not be limited to only those with certificates or ability to write convincing language, but to those that have genuine ideas and skills even if they cannot access internet or write an application. Poor infrastructure, especially lack of stable electricity supply will continue to hinder any employment policy. Small skilled labour should be professionalized, so that when people engage in such small skill labour work, it will be counted as part of their professional work experience, and the wages for small skill labour should be standardised and regulated. Most importantly, every individual must commit to work on his/her personal development and improving his/her capacities and capabilities, without this, no policy or intervention will make difference in the lives of the people.

     

    • Dr. Ahmed Adamu,

    Umaru Musa Yar’adua University Katsina.

  • Reporting public affairs: The missing link

    Reporting public affairs: The missing link

    Just as you don’t become a lawyer (a practising one) only upon studying law in the university or a teacher after graduating from a college of education, you don’t also answer to a journalist merely because you have undertaken journalism studies. You’d need to have been a practitioner of the profession and a subscriber to its lifetime discipline of keeping abreast of developments in the field through training, retraining and massive reading of literature churned out to update you.

    This vision has led to the observation that practitioners of most of the professions in Nigeria are not growing. We’ve been rooted to the same spot for ages while the rest of the world has moved on. The nation as the end-user of the dissemination of information has suffered where others in this global village have flourished. This isn’t a floored position on account of the empirical evidence attesting to the substandard and unethical values in the institutions manned by our bureaucrats and professionals.

    Therefore the sum of the argument in one of Jackson Akpasubi’s latest booksPractical Guide to Public Affairs for Journalists is that these professionals would be better suited to contribute qualitatively to both the society and the vocation if they were exposed to new grounds in the field through books. It does not suffice, he insists, to flaunt a surfeit of academic suffixes. But really what is the point if you have all these good degrees and diplomas and they are of no functional application?

    So in his 11-chapter 217-page book, Akpasubi establishes the view that the media being the fourth estate of the realm, its members can only justify that role if they are able to handle their reportage of public affairs (i.e public policy) tactically and admirably. They must be exposed to specialised books like Akpasubi’s work under review. The author is able to draw on his own vast experience that has seen him operate in some of the country’s revered media houses (The Guardian, Concord Newspaper group, Sentinel etc climaxing as the Director of News,TVC) to pontificate on a number of grundnorms.

    The newsroom is the link between the people and public policy making, a relationship which is pivotal to healthy growth and development of society. Another: the place of public policy in journalism practice today is becoming extremely complex in our globally interconnected world. Still more: social policy news stories have more human interest perspectives and must not be played down. Akpasubi adds that as a result of the expansion of public services and the rise in political importance and their statutory objectives as stated in chapter 2 of the Nigerian constitution, it is binding on journalists to monitor the government on its discharge of its responsibility to the people. The Constitution says the newsman must play the watchdog role. These newsmen then must be doubly kitted to perform that function if society is to exist organically.

    Akpasubi reaches out to a host of classical definitions of public policy. But, my pick is this: “Public policy is the process by which governments translate their political vision into realities (programmes) and actions to deliver “outcomes” (or) the desired changes in the real world. Examples of desired outcomes include clean air, clean water, good and affordable healthcare, high employment, decent and affordable housing, minimal levels of poverty, improved literacy, law, (low) crime rate, socially cohesive society, and of course high and qualitative educational system among others.”

    This sets the stage for the author to identify and zero in on areas constituting public policy. The checklist enumerated by the author includes almost everything under the sun.

    They are to be handled by those the author calls “specialist reporters” not “general beat reporters” who “in the past” made “ministers and parastatal heads … frequently get away with not knowing very much.” To assist society understand issues and formulate helpful public policy, the reporter must “acquire the virtue of patience… It requires attendance at long often boring public meetings (especially when they are political) and court of public hearings. It requires poring over lengthy often confusing public documents … careful research … and of course, the ability to organise and compile information and to write precisely and accurately.”

    But some observers would not allow a couple of Akpasubi’s postulations to go unchallenged. His tree of the different levels of Public Policy Process is one such bone of contention. The author presents Genesis as the first; the second is the Development stage; the third is Implementation; and lastly Feedback which the journalist does through reports and analysis. Critics of the radical Hegelian school would swiftly take Akpasubi to task. Why is he stopping at Stage 4? They would counter that there is more activity after that level. They would move on to proffer the famous dialectical argument: thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. Feedback stage would be overthrown to give way to a new Genesis that would also lead to new levels in an endless cycle of policies and further displacements.

    These are the dynamics of social growth and development.

    Practical Guide to Public Affairs for Journalists has a word on reporting local governments. Correctly considered by many to be the key to reform and restructuring Nigeria, the book laments that the reporter has been sucked in by the jinx of viewing council administration as the home of “levy and tax collection.” If we have this attitude to the local government system in Nigeria, the nation and its democratic structure cannot ably evolve a progressive policy that serves the interest of the masses. But a relentless media scrutiny and reportage of council affairs can redress the situation. Just as there is too much power at the centre in Abuja, the nation’s capital, resulting in little development and empowerment of the people in the states there is also sadly scant attention and resources in the local governments. This is responsible for the poverty of Nigeria despite our gargantuan potential.

    Akpasubi’s second book is the 104 page Dictionary of Media Terms. The idea for the project came when the author made his acclaimed transition from print to electronic (TV) journalism. He encountered a completely new world where he discovered that like the boy in an African adage you must not boast too much about the size of your father’s farm until you’ve visited that of your friend’s father. But given Akpasubi’s humble tradition and a habitual determination to always learn new things, he stooped to conquer and gobbled up all that was on offer on this new turf. This book is the outcome of his experience.

    It is one of the few available for the public to learn about the shibboleth that those in the radio, TV, web, PR, adverts etc use in their day-to-day enterprise.

    The book’s beauty lies in its simplicity, one-liner definitions, and brief historical forays. Its resort to arcane technical explanations is unavoidable in some respects. But it is adroitly handled.

    Now, although Jackson Akpasubi had his way in the two books with thoroughly researched presentation, he never could stop the printer’s devil from having its say many times over. The photographs could have been reproduced in their original colour format. In the case of the Dictionary of Media Terms, there is no photograph at all. What saved the day are the colourful cover and the depth of discourse between the covers.

     

     

    • Ojewale is a writer in Ota, Ogun State

     

  • Technology as missing link in job creation

    After months of denying the obvious realities of the quagmire plaguing us as a nation, I was jolted into reality at a stakeholders meeting organized by Solar Challenge Nigeria, organizers of first Nigeria Solar Car Challenge –an attempt to pull resources together towards achieving the laudable initiative of developing a solar powered car. According to the organizers, the challenge is aimed at reviving research in science and technology and to place Nigeria in a better pedestal amongst the comity of nations in research endeavours. The solar powered cars that would be used in the challenge are to be built by the participating institutions.

    Eight institutions registered for the competition; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; Kings Polytechnic, Ubiaja (hosts); National Centre for Energy Research and Development, University of Nigeria – Nsukka; Adamawa State University, Federal University Oye, Ekiti; Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, University of Nsukka, National Centre for Energy Research – Sokoto. Interestingly, a secondary school, Word of Faith College, Benin City, in Edo State also showed interest via a concerned student named Famous who wished to be part of the initiative.

    One salient point I would like to draw from the above is that technological development is not restrictive. An average secondary school student needs a well prepared mind towards innovation, home grown technology and development as against the “cut and paste” syndrome prevalent amongst our engineers. The system has so much limited the capabilities of the youths that we look abroad for everything that can be made at home. Hardly do our secondary schools engage in practicals again. Gone are the days of Introduction to Technology (IntroTech), Agricultural Settlements (where each student plough, tend and harvest his/her piece of land), and Home Economics amongst others. We lost virtually everything to the commercialization of education!

    Our tertiary institutions are beyond redemption; laboratories are empty, workshops are full of cobwebs and obsolete equipment, engineering garages are full of abandoned projects and students’ research works in the social sciences and humanities accumulate dust in the libraries. None of our students’ projects ever get tested or given practicality once submitted, after all, ours is a certificate country. The lecturers’ burden is to give project topics, award marks and not to confirm originality or veracity of such projects. A good number of such projects are even plagiarised, but who really cares?

    The universities are under funded and lecturers’ earnings are tied to the apron of an unwilling government. The system stifles every sense of belonging and cripples every means to engage in constructive and productive research. For three months now, our universities have unceremoniously been under lock and key because the federal government is too “poor” to fund the rejuvenation of our universities from abyss of decay and quack productivity. But we can travel everywhere and even offer aid to “less” developed economies as if we are ourselves developed. Ours is a government which fails to smell its own filth.

    Every citizen except the government knows that science and technology is a basic strategic tool for development. There is no gain saying the country has to explore high technological investment as a tool for growing the Nigerian economy, except one wants to deceive oneself. Recently at the presentation of a book by former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Turner Isoun, “Why Run Before Learning To Walk – Reflections on technology as a strategic tool for development in Nigeria”, in Abuja, Prof. Nimi Briggs, said, “Nigeria must acquire versatile technologies that will deliver multiple and diverse services that are owned and implemented by Nigerians. Key among these are space, information and communication technology, biotechnology, energy technology and climate change adaptation technologies”.

    Can versatile technologies be delivered when both the private and public sector finds it extremely difficult to invest in scientific and technological research? The drive for a competitive solar car research amongst tertiary institutions by Solar Challenge Nigeria is a case in point. Despite laxity in governmental and corporate supports, the resilience of the organizers needs to be commended. Against all odds, the organizers have stuck to their guns in championing an initiative that would trigger green approach to transportation, sustainable energy, protect the environment and enhance viable employment.

    At independence, Nigeria could be likened to a precocious child – skilled at birth. We were the pride – Africa’s Giant, but today, those who look to us, have moved ahead. While other countries were switching to efficient cars that have eliminated petroleum products, importing of refined crude products under obnoxious subsidy that benefits the few remains our lot. And when we decided to stand against such crookedness, a Subsidy Re-investment Programme (SURE-P) was foisted upon us. One would have assumed that such fund would be channelled to dig out the root of our insufficiency, invest in science and technology, obliterate unemployment and secure the present to sustain the future. But what do we have – a charade!

    At the last Presidential Media Chat, President Goodluck Jonathan made tacit comment about solar energy powering our street lights; but renewable energy can do more. What matters are leadership, research development, tax incentives and public policy at the federal and state levels. Renewable energy (Sun, wind and bio-fuel) is too readily available not to add significant impact to our near comatose economy.

    In a report by American Solar Energy Society (ASES) in conjunction with Management Information Services, Inc (MISI), an internationally recognized economic research firm based in Washington D.C., they forecast that 37 million jobs and $4,294 billion annual revenue would be generated from renewable energy and energy efficiency by 2030 in the United States alone. The forecast provides a sector-by-sector analysis of where the opportunities are in the rapidly changing renewable energy and energy efficiency industries. It subdivided the sector areas to include solar thermal, solar photo-voltaic, bio-fuels, and fuel cells (in terms of revenue growth) and job areas in the following aspects; electricians, mechanical engineers, welders, metal workers, construction managers, accountants, analysts, environmental scientists, and chemists.

    Considering the Nigeria environment that is deficient, miserable and groping for a sustainable energy life, wider job range can be envisioned. All that is needed is a government that believes in it self and is determined to lead in the direction. There is an urgent need for government and private entities to come together to save the face of our science. We all need to become proselytizers for science and technology. Citizens must not only pay lip service but ingrain the gospel, finance the ministry and make sure it grows into making Nigeria an industrialized nation. Science and technology innovation could generate millions of jobs and proffer a solution to a myriad of national problems, we just have to look more inward and give financial support to what adds collective value against individual goals.

    I have nothing against the support for creative arts which has had unparalleled sponsorship from the telecommunication sector in recent time. Neither am I against talent hunts, for the companies involved; the end justifies the means. In a nation where T.V and Social Media have taken productive endeavours from the youths coupled with fallacious syndrome of mega millionaire music stars, one could not expect less. Our youths have long imbibed the get-rich-and-famous-syndrome.

    To the Twitter activist, development crusaders, Uhuru stands far ahead. If we need drum, let us campaign for more sustainable involvement of government and private corporations in science and technology. The amount needed to revive Science, Technology and Innovation, is small compared to what is currently expended on reality shows. We can’t criticize what we get from abroad when we don’t have alternatives, and the only way to get alternatives, is to re-awaken our intellectual capabilities. I believe in science and technology to get us started; I believe in what Solar Challenge Nigeria is doing.

    •Mojeed-Sanni writes from Lagos.

  • Nation-building: The missing link

    If there is one incontrovertible point that the recurring and destructive challenges of Nigeria have proved in more than half a century of its existence as an independent entity, it is the disturbing view that its bereavement of good leadership is the cause of our backwardness and poverty.

    To be sure we do not lack the raw ingredients to brew to transform us into an eminently prosperous society. We have them aplenty, indeed a surfeit of these. There is a landmass that triples a host of vastly developed European nations put together. This implies that size isn’t essentially the issue. There is more to owning a treasure.

    We also have enormous foreign-currency magnetising resources, chief of which is crude oil. This has proved, over the decades, near inexhaustible. But it is deceptive wealth as it hasn’t led us to the Promised Land. Again what we deduce here is that it is not enough to possess seemingly bottomless wealth. What do you do with it? Who handles it? In whose custody is it for optimum utility?

    Next we have the putative advantage of population. One out of six black men on planet earth is probably a Nigerian. Our population is more than that of the other nations of the entire West Africa sub region added together. A breakdown of the statistics indicates that most of these Nigerians are vibrant young men and women ready to work productively for the fatherland but they are either forced straight into crime or idleness which eventually leads them into anti-social activity and parasitism! On this score also, we discern that to have large human resources is not the magic wand for the greatness of a nation. Something in the form of a direction must come along.

    Matching this dynamic population input in the mix is a rich potpourri of our cultural diversity coupled with an impressive array of such tourism destinations as Yankari, Obudu, Ikogosi etc. etc. that can spin us hard currency, local and foreign investments and jobs if the industry finds its way into the hands of a visionary and committed leader. But one more time, as it is with the other resources we have mentioned, something vital is missing and making the system malfunction tragically.

    Ditto for politics. We can truly boast of fulfilling all the righteousness of the political process: periodic elections, party formation, party primaries, going on the hustings to campaign, voter registration, massive media enlightenment on polling conduct etc. etc. Yet the majority of the people don’t enjoy the dividends of democracy for who all these mammoth motions and rituals are performed.

    Again the sad refrain: something is missing!

    What is the problem and where is it? Certainly the problem is not in our stars. It is in the calibre of leadership.

    Dr. Michael Oladele-Cole, a prominent Nigerian industrialist, is as concerned as we are on this sore point. He declared recently: “More than ever before in the history of its existence, Nigeria needs an urgent solution to the many leadership challenges besetting it which are threatening the nation’s economic infrastructural and ethical revolution.” And Catholic cleric George Ehusani has added: “We need a shift in leadership focus sustained by transparency and accountability where civil society will engage the political leadership in balancing policy objectives against concrete acts of governance.”

    And speaking on Channels TV during an interview, Adetokunbo Obayan, a leadership consultant said: “The reason we are where we are as a nation is not accidental. It is because the holders and occupiers of many of our platforms of leadership have relatively failed. They failed to understand what leadership is and they failed to deliver leadership.”

    Some compatriots may question the stand of these gentlemen in putting wholesale blame at the doorstep of leadership for the woes of the country, and not also on the followership. We believe however that the problem is located in both spectrum of society but a slightly heavier weight of the burden is one of the leadership. There is a massive leadership problem which the country has been struggling with from its very inception. And it is getting worse.

    The country’s political elite has failed thus far to provide that calibre of leadership which the country needs to free its genius. At every turn in the political life of the country, leadership has been abysmal right across the board, to the extent that the ethical and moral decline has degenerated so terribly that a systematic collapse confronts the country.

    This situation makes the question of leadership so desperate that the search for a suitable leader to unbottle that genius in us needs some creative new approach.

    We are broadening the search for the appropriate leader who can, not only pull Nigeria from the brink but also put it on track for economic development and modernity.

    Media is our tool in this business. Our advocacy is uniquely designed to investigate the potential of a prospective leader and propagate him via radio, television and documentaries, basically from the achievements. The key factors that will be isolated and all-encompassingly searched and propagated are the perceivable content of the individual’s thought processes manifested in his activities, and the moral-ethic background to his delivery.

    We are informed on this path because the role of politics in identifying a potential leader has over the years been long on selfish interest and hopelessly short on moral/ethical values of the individual. Most of our leaders are railroaded onto positions of leadership without any demonstration of ability to comprehend the problems of our societies on the basis of which they could fashion a sustainable plan. Less than one per cent of the leaders Nigeria has ever had drew any plan for the country’s development.

    All of this should change if the country is to progress. We must scout for that leader who has not only demonstrated a capacity for creative thinking; his resource management capability should be in evidence from his work. And when we find such leader or leaders we must present them powerfully to the Nigerian public, the political parties and the international community.

    We are confident that we can make an impact with this approach because our experiences as journalists and political consultants have taught us one great lesson that leadership of a country like Nigeria should transcend narrow partisan politics, but the truth of Nigeria’s political experience is that most of the politicians engaged in party politics are parochial in thinking, limited in experience and bereft of the fundamentals of ethical moral discipline. This is the bane of their failure in governance especially at the federal level.

    We call on all Nigerians to join us in this noble mission to identify committed and selfless leaders who will help to release the chained genius in the bottle of Nigeria’s bottomless resources. Less endowed countries have struck gold and elevated their society through the sheer inputs of good leadership. We shall begin to identify some of the potential leaders who measure up to this identity in the days ahead.

    •Obafemi and Ojewale, promoters of WriteConsult, sent this article from Lagos.