One of the fundamental problems that governments all over the world tackle is unemployment.
But in Nigeria, unemployment among youths is rife. The streets are littered with young people who had been out of school, some with very good degrees or higher diplomas but have remained unemployed many years after graduation.
Amina Odigie, who she studied biochemistry at the University of Benin, Edo Sate in 2010 is an
example. According to her, since she took part in the National Youth Service Corp, NYSC, the following year, she had been hunting for job.
"I have responded to all sorts of advertisement and made personal contacts, yet none of it has come to fruition. "When it seems that hope is on the horizon, suddenly it dims again," she said.
* Nigerian youths at the National Stadium in Abuja seeking immigration jobs recently Asked how she fends for herself, Odigie said:
"I hustle, sometimes I buy clothes and sell to people but because the capital is not there so the business can't be sustained. "No one likes to depend on relatives for survival but that is what is happening to me now," she lamented. Odigie's plight is symbolic of what many Nigerian graduates undergo because of lack of jobs.
According to Thomas Adah, who said he read Theatre Arts in an university in the western part of Nigeria, seven years after school he
has not been able to nick a job.
"People laugh at me; some ask me what the problem is. The system is bad such that sometimes when I go for interviews, the employers would take those I perform better than and I'm left in the cold."
How does he earn a living? The long-term applicant informed that 'I engage in menial jobs'.
"I work sometimes as a secretary in a
company where I am grossly underpaid.
"Where in the world do you pay university graduate N18,000? That is what I earn monthly because I haven't got many choices.
"I augment the meager sum that I get by selling recharge cards on weekends and sometimes I live off friends and acquaintances."
Muyiwa Afolabi's jobless tale sums the gory state of unemployment in Nigeria. After seven years of fruitless job-hunting after leaving the university, Muyiwa said he got a
motorcycle that he used commercially. With this, he said he was able to make ends meet. But that too, was not to be for long, as
the ban on commercial cyclists in many parts of Lagos where he resides has put him out of job.
"My bike was ceased one morning as I tried to convey passengers. Since then, I have become
jobless. Now I am frustrated, things are tough," he lamented.
Essien Udoh, a Higher National Diploma, who left his home state in the eastern part of the country in search of a job in Lagos, also
expressed a pitiful tale. Udoh, who read Business Management at the
Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, said he was optimistic that he would get a job in Lagos after three years of trial in his home state.
With no definite accommodation, Udoh said he stayed in squalid condition, feeding irregularly and sometimes having nowhere to spend the night.
He narrated how he once got a job in a factory but soon left it due to extremely poor working conditions and distance from where he lived to his place of work. "The work ethic in the factory was not commiserating with the remuneration.
"Since I left there two years ago, I have been idling away, as my credentials are neatly kept in my file.
"I'm just wasting away," the 33 year-old who has dependents back home lamented. Nnenna Anajemba graduated with a first degree in English and Literary Studies from a
state university in the south-eastern part of Nigeria. For more four years, she has trudged the labour market without finding a good employment.
"Every vacancy I have seen since I left school five years ago, I have responded.
"Not even one has come back to me good. The problem is they keep placing emphasis on particular age limit or class of degree.
"I am beginning to believe that it is the Nigeria system that has conspired against me.
Government must take radical steps to help people like me because I know there are so many out there," she pleaded.
Many people have blamed the state of unemployment in the country to the low level of power or electricity distribution in the country.
Such commentators argue that were electricity stable, a lot of industries, small and medium size enterprises would have sprung up, hence
increase employment opportunities for Nigerians.
Yet, other analysts have cited the absence of credit facilities for small business owner as a key problem bedeviling employment.
Such people argue that many idle young Nigeria could have been gainfully employed in small businesses if power, good road and loan facilities are provided for the citizenry.
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