[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he role of youths (employed and unemployed) and their enormous contributions to nation building can never be over emphasized, especially with Nigeria’s population and position in Africa. Nigeria, with a total population of approximately 174million, has youths in the age bracket of 15 to 35 years, amounting for over 116million of her total population. This is according to the statistics provided by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Thus, it is vital to note that it would be an unforgivable waste of human resources for the strength of over 116million people to be abandoned or wrongly put to use, if these youths are not given opportunities to exercise their talents. Furthermore, there is no denial that Nigeria is one of the few African countries where young people work hard to secure a future and the activities of this 116million population will definitely go a long way to boost the country’s all round development, like it did during the last general elections that ensured the success of the ruling party.
Unfortunately, 54% of these youths are not meaningfully engaged for the good of the Nigerian economy, and by implication, if they are not building the nation directly, they might be contributing to the setback the country suffers directly or indirectly because they need to put their strength to use somehow.
Meanwhile, the entire population of these youths may not be literate, but if about half of them are literate (can read and write) and thus handle the aspect of skilled labour while the other half takes care of unskilled labour, that means, every area of the economy can be taken care of. Little wonder private employers of labour often describe Nigerian graduates as unemployable (even if that’s not entirely true). This is evident in the way entrepreneurship and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are handled in our education curriculum.
In October 2014, The National University Council (NUC) approved the inclusion of entrepreneurship in the University curriculum. Sadly, it was never monitored to measure the success, and the same goes for ICT back in 2012 when educationists were clamoring for its inclusion in education curriculum. Students may be partly blamed too, anyways.
Nigeria should stop seeing the population as a problem, but as a prospect to build on for tremendous growth across board as seen in China and India. The mentality of a national cake to benefit from may continue to debar progress until the youths begin to put resources together to bake their personal cake.
Interestingly, the world’s economy has moved from the United States to Asia and its coming to Africa, but it may catch many Africans unaware since Science and Technology as well as Entrepreneurship, which helped to boost the economy in Asia, is not appealing to an average African just yet.
That being said, during the campaigns toward the 2015 general elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC) promised N5000 monthly allowances to unemployed youths. As catchy as the promise was, it would only help produce tons of young people who will remain dependent on government instead of being independent, productive and efficient to boost the economy.
If it becomes reality, the said sum will in no time dig a long lasting hole in government’s purse. Because if, for instance, half of the 70million population gets verified to be truly unemployed, this means Nigerian government will pay N350billion monthly. Maybe some other developed countries around the world can afford that much every month, definitely not Nigeria with the current system.
Alternatively, government should spend the supposed N350 billion per month in building infrastructures, such as schools, hospitals, roads, rail lines, better Internet infrastructures, electricity and so on, then give a N5000 worth of voucher to every qualified young person to spend at government owned facilities. It will in no doubt provide jobs for this same youth across the nation, while the money continues to circulate within the economy.
We can learn from President Roosevelt of United States who took advantage of the great depression of America that lasted for 10years (between 1929 – 1939) and instead of the government just giving out money he leverage on the American population and several of the infrastructures that America boast of today were built during this period.
In addition, for young entrepreneurs, interest on loan should be reduced even as access to loans become more convenient so that youths can finance their prospective business ideas. Having said these, the youths should arise and identify their position in nation building rather than pursuing aimless lifestyles and blaming government for their predicament. The entire success of a country like Nigeria depends on the youths, thus it is high time the youths got of their comfort zones to acquire relevant skills.
And beyond acquiring the formal skills to know how to read and write, the ability to think, understand, analyze, and discuss issues militating against the progress of the country is one thing that every young person must strive towards.
As youths, the top priority is to get good education (formal or informal) in order to become better citizens of tomorrow. Youths are the building blocks of every developed nation, and the emotional, psychological, financial and all round strength of the youth of a country, often determine the speed of her growth and development. It is important to quickly note that the current state of leadership in Nigeria is not encouraging to the younger generation, however, it can only be made better if the youths have a good understanding of their significance.
It is the responsibility of the youths to give life to the nation. This set of people can work to rebuild the nation setting a new pace for unscrupulous politicians who have always taken advantage of the naivety of the Nigerian youths. If the youth understand their position, sooner rather than later, Nigeria will be recognized and reorganized.
To buttress this point, Mark Zuckerberg; CEO and co-founder of Facebook, Jan Koum; CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp and Jack Dorsey; co-founder of Twitter, among many others are all youths. However they made a difference by finding solution to problems and by that changed the way millions of people communicate around the world today.
Good to know that a few young Nigerians are already rising up to challenges around them, working hard writing codes and other computer programs, but Nigeria is still a virgin land with numerous spheres of life begging for exploration. It is therefore imperative for the President Buhari-led administration to make youths’ empowerment a priority. If successive governments laid a brick in empowering the younger generations for the tomorrow of the country, 55years gone now, youths could have built the nation far.
Initiatives like YouWin should be strengthened to cover more young people than the few it currently can cater for. So too, government should observe that quite a number of these young people are without appropriate guidelines about their futures. Therefore, it is dangerous to allow them continue being idle because it could increase their frustration which could lead to social unrest and militantism. They need to be constructively engaged with productive tasks.
On that note, it is important to acknowledge the recent speech of Mr. President while declaring open the 8th Bola Tinubu colloquium held at the International Conference Center (ICC) on March 29th, in Abuja. He noted that the Federal Government will prioritize agriculture, adding that the cooperation of all Nigerians would be required to make agriculture the country’s economic mainstay considering the shrinking crude oil price.
He also acknowledged that Nigeria can no longer depend on oil when he advised the visiting out-gone Ambassador of South Sudan to Nigeria. We believe this a step in the right direction and such initiative can help empower youth while at the same time feed the nation.
It will then be the responsibility of the government to make occupations such as farming more attractive by injecting funds and trained experts into the system. We might continue to think that an average literate Nigerian youth does not want to practice farming, either mechanized or subsistent, but this might not be true if the support structure is made available to everyone interested, both old and young. Nigeria has vast uncultivated lands which are fertile for farming, we should put them to use.
At this juncture, it is important to note that these things might not yield immediate results, but they definitely will be productive as time goes by and as everyone works hand in hand. Every initiative that would survive a long term usually requires time to grow. So do nation building initiatives.
On the whole, government at different levels must make youth empowerment their priority so that youths can make Nigeria a land that truly flourishes and shines in success. The Association for Credible Leadership in Nigeria (ACLN) advises Nigerian youths to focus on their collective strength to be able to contribute immensely towards the development of the nation and the future of Nigeria.
