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Employment Agenda For The Mohammadu Buhari Administration By Otive Igbuzor, Ph.D.
Unemployment is arguably one of the greatest problems confronting Nigeria today, the others being corruption, insecurity and poverty. In response to this problem, the All Progressives Congress (APC) promised to create three million jobs in a year through public works programmes and shifting the economy towards value-added production. Unemployment (or joblessness) occurs when people are without work and actively seeking work. It occurs when a person who is actively searching for employment is unable to find work. The unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the labour force. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), more than 197 million people globally or 6 percent of the world’s workforce were without job in 2012. As at 2006, unemployment rate in Nigeria was as low as 5.3 percent. But it has increased to 23.9 percent by 2011. It is particularly precarious for the Youth in Nigeria. As at 2012, 54 percent of Nigerian Youth were without jobs. By 2014, a Central Bank of Nigeria official (Dr. Aisha Mahmood, Special Assistant on Sustainable Banking stated that 80 percent of Nigerian youth are without jobs. It is ironical that Africa has experienced a tremendous growth rate over the past decade and rated as one of the fastest growing continent in the world. The GDP growth of 4.2 percent in 2012 is projected to strengthen to 4.9 percent in 2013 and pick up to 5.3 percent in 2014 and 5.5 percent in 2015. But the growth has been largely jobless growth and associated with increasing unemployment especially among African youth and the traditionally marginalized people (women, the poor, persons living with disability) have been left out. The challenge is that the economic growth is not translating into poverty reduction and improvement in the standard of living of the people. This is why what is needed in Africa is inclusive growth “to ensure equitable allocation of resources with benefits spread to every section of society.” Scholars are in agreement that Africa needs inclusive growth that will require resilience to external shocks; improvements in agricultural productivity; productive non-agricultural jobs in both rural and urban areas and better safety net programmes; particularly in countries benefiting from large economic rents from natural resources. As Osita Ogbu has consistently argued, one of the major problems is that economic growth in Nigeria has not created meaningful employment as many of the country’s youth including those with university degrees are currently unemployed. The problem is that Nigeria’s economic growth is driven, in part, by rising global oil prices. The manufacturing sector in Nigeria represents only 4 percent of GDP compared to 20 percent in Brazil, 34 percent in China, 30 percent in Maylasia, 35 percent in Thailand and 28 percent in Indonesia. Meanwhile, it has been shown that “no country can banish mass poverty unless it creates millions of new jobs a year in manufacturing and services.” Therefore, in addition to public works, the APC government should ensure that the economy is inclusive and the manufacturing sector is expanded. Other job generating sectors that should be utilized are agriculture and tourism. |