FIDELIS EGUGBO
IT is indeed very painful for one to attend institutions of higher learning only to spend years after graduation at home without a job. More frustrating is when you hear about job vacancies where more than 40, 000 graduates, some with their Masters Degrees applying for jobs meant for just 1, 000 persons. This is a common phenomenon in Nigeria, a country where it was once said that becoming a graduate entitles an individual to a Volkswagen Beetle Car and a ready job.
Today, there are more jobless graduates on the streets than the number of undergraduates in the universities with preponderance of those ones to be churned out to swell the number of the unemployed men and women on the streets. The greatest challenge of Nigeria is the high number of its unemployed virile population; we are already witnessing its effects in the rise in well coordinated cult-related activities and societal ills that can only be perpetuated by professionals, among others.
And the question is, where did we get it wrong as a country once reputed to have ready jobs for its graduates, the darling of world powers where you did not require visa to enter any country? It is a question of leadership, greedy leadership that lost faith in the country and have more confidence in investing in other economies than developing the country. How can other nations have faith in you when you are craving to invest or hide your lòot in their countries?
Despite the complaint of joblessness in the country, foreigners can be seen doing menial jobs that does not require a lot of expertise that Nigerians can easily do following a false assumption that anything foreign is the best which has become a thing of pride to say, a ‘Togolese laid my tiles.’ For us to get Nigeria back again on track, the leadership must believe in Nigeria; you are not holding position of authority to rely on foreigners to do everything, including drafting policies for the country whereas, there are Nigerians who are more qualified to do so.
To get Nigeria back on track again, the leadership must believe in Nigeria and utilise the available resources in the country for the good of Nigerians. It can happen. Let us stop the capital flights in a country where more than 50 per cent of its active population is jobless and things will turn around. Stop the flimsy medical tourism, doctors in the country can treat common cold and the ailments you think are complicated and stop moving money from Nigeria to invest in other countries, invest in Nigeria, believe in Nigeria and things will work.
No one should believe that Nigeria will disintegrate and continue to build safe havens outside the shores of the country, we are all stuck in Nigeria. The country cannot disintegrate, so, help to secure the country by establishing your companies in Nigeria where cheap labour is in surplus supply and the market for your products are currently, being utilised by foreigners to keep their graduates working.
The most dangerous job is that which is against the norms – kidnapping, armed robbery, stealing, et all and the day you create the enabling environment where job opportunities abound, Nigeria will become one of the safest places to live in in the world. Nigerians are not naturally criminals as some of them are being branded, what is happening is answering to the question of surviving hunger in the face of affluence. If nothing is done, urgently to change the narrative, who knows what the youths who are very intelligent will do next to survive? Who will be the victim of the joblessness? All that matters is, believing in Nigeria. It is appalling to hear about Nigerians preferring to invest in Ghana and other countries; it is not only a disservice to the jobless Nigerian youths but, act of unpatriotism to believe more in the survival of other countries than Nigeria. Nigeria will survive, believe in yourself, be confident.
In its desire to make Nigeria work again, the Governor of Delta State, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa blazed the trail by initiating the Job Creation Office and making it compulsory to train Deltans in different skills and went further to equip them to practice. Last week, Governor Okowa re-echoed his call for all institutions of higher learning in Nigeria to make skill acquisition and entrepreneurship studies compulsory for all undergraduates.
The governor who paid a fact-finding visit to the Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku was happy that the skill acquisition and entrepreneurship department of the institution was very active and went ahead to assure the institution that 50 best graduating students in skill acquisition and entrepreneurship studies from different Departments in the institution would be equipped annually to be independent. The implication of what the governor said is that there will be automatic job for 50 graduates of the institution who will certainly train more Deltans in skill acquisition and entrepreneurship to be on their own.
“I have encouraged all higher institutions in the country to ensure that no student leaves the institution without requisite training in entrepreneurship development. If we strengthen skill acquisition and entrepreneurship development, we will have creators of jobs, creators of wealth as graduates in the new Nigeria.
A new narrative can come out from Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi-Uku by utilizing the knowledge acquired with hands and brains which is very important for you to succeed in modern Nigeria. The best skilled students will be empowered by the state government to be able to start on their own and I want to state it here that the best fifty students which will be taken from different departments will be equipped to start their own businesses. The empowerment is to fully provide the basic needs and we hope that they will be role models. A minimum of 50 students will be equipped to start their own businesses starting from this year; we want to also, challenge ourselves in this polytechnic to provide instruments and equipment that will be used locally to better the lives of our people; the graduates should be proud of their alma mater and the institution in the next four years should be proud of their graduates,” the governor said.
One important factor about what Governor Okowa is doing is that those who are graduates of skill acquisition and entrepreneurship are establishing their businesses in Delta State and as such, in the next few years those small-scale businesses with proper mentorship will metamorphose into businesses that will be contributing to absorbing the jobless in the society and as well, contribute to the internally generated revenue of the state.
Necessary infrastructures like roads are already being constructed across the state by the state government, because, to Governor Okowa, Delta State can change the narrative in the country, as people should know that certain things are working in the state and as such, can work in other parts of the country.
(As published on page 10 of The Pointer Newspaper of Sunday, May 19, 2019.)
