By Maftau Gbadegesin
The National Bureau of Statistics recently found the unemployment rate in Nigeria to be 27.1% at the second quarter of 2020 from 23.1% it was in the third quarter of 2018, the last time such report was made public. Since that report hit the ground, arguments and counterarguments have ensued regarding government’s efforts at tackling this existential threat.
For critics, government’s attitude across tiers is at best lackadaisical, nonchalant and indifferent while at worst, dispiriting, demoralizing and discouraging. With that heartbreaking report, unemployment now stood at a staggering rate as more Nigerians, ready and agile continued to roam cities in desperate hunt for scarce jobs. For a serious, committed and people-oriented government, such heart wrenching revelation would not only have been worrisome, and troubling but concrete and workable plans intended to holistically tackle and address such scourge would have been hashed out.
Aside NBS jolting figures, emerging facts paint an uglier picture than presently peddled by government. This proposition is partly hanged on two-fold conjecture: lack of central database initiated to capture unemployment rate in the country from urban dwellers to inhabitants of hinterlands, and, the unwillingness of most Nigerians to disclose their job statuses.
Take Tunde, a young graduate, a beneficiary of N-Power programme before his service year. During his compulsory National Youth Service Corps programme, his volunteering job with N-Power was on as was his monthly allowance from NYSC. This kind of discrepancy would have been tracked had we a national database in place to trace such double benefits. This lack of central database and unwillingness of Nigerians to disclose their job statuses, if continued to be treated with levity, will keep Nigeria’s quest for accurate data hampered. Data collection, with penchant for honesty and sincerity requires strong political will. But for a country fraught with corruption and tribalism, such has remained a white elephant project. In other words, figures reeled off by NBS will remain a subject of debate both from pro and anti-government critics and dingbats for a while now.
A disturbing four million Nigerians were estimated to applied for the paltry 400,000 N-Power Batch C jobs. From all indications, this startling disclosure does not just portend a serious danger for Nigeria but also put the country on the recipe of social unrest. While the country continues to sit comfortably on a keg of gun-powder, it is important to draw examples from revolutionary Arab spring which swept Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, and others occasioned by high unemployment rate, with systemic, wanton and institutional corruption as close relative.
Gbadegesin sent this piece via uftaugbadegesin@gmail.com