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The Bigger Problem Is Lack of Statistics

By newswatchngr.com 16/09/2011 04:51:00

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Abdulwaheed Omar, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, speaks with Tobs Agbaegbu, senior associate editor, on the growing rate of unemployment in the country. Excerpts

Newswatch: Could you tell us the NLC position on the rising rate of unemployment in Nigeria presently?

Omar: We have found ourselves, as a nation, in a precarious situation, regarding the issue of unemployment. It is really unfortunate that while you find in developed countries that one of the major economic indices is the issue of employment, it is not the case in Nigeria. We found ourselves in a situation here, where we don’t even have adequate statistics about those who are in gainful employment and those who are not. All these are major issues that ought to be looked into before the government can have a good focus for development.

Newswatch: As it stands today, does the NLC have an idea on how bad the situation is?

Omar: The only thing is that we cannot back it up with adequate statistics. What is not in dispute, however, is that we are in a very terrible situation regarding the issue of unemployment. If you look at the number of youths coming out of the Nigerian universities and other tertiary institutions, compared with the number being employed, you know that the situation is bad. And that is a clear indication that we are sitting on a time bomb as far as unemployment and lack of good living condition is concerned. Just yesterday, for instance, somebody called me from Sokoto and was explaining to me that he has educated all his children. One graduated five years ago, another graduated three years ago and yet another two years ago. He said none of them has gotten a job ever since. This is just one case out of millions in the country now. It’s no longer the issue of going to school to acquire education. The issue now is that even when you have acquired education, there is no job for you. We are not advocating that everybody must be absorbed in government job. What we are saying is that it is the primary responsibility of government to ensure that adequate arrangements are made to facilitate a lot of outlets for employment. Even self employment is one of the ways out. But our government does not even know how many people are under gainful employment, how many people are not employed. We are not even talking about the statistics of the percentage and ratio between the employed and unemployed yet. We don’t have all these. And these people that stand to be unemployed are people that are able bodied. And they are very much restless. They also have a lot of energy to dispense and they must find an avenue to dispense all their energy. If the channel of dispensing that energy is not a gainful one, definitely, the likelihood of them turning the energies into a negative one is there. That is why we believe that the issue of provision of gainful employment is one the government must pay more attention to. I quite agree that this government has a plan in place by earmarking about N50 billion for employment. But the issue is what does the N50billion translate to? I think the starting point is that there must be adequate arrangement to have reliable data.

Newswatch: How do you see government’s response to the issue of employment through the establishment of the National Directorate of Employment, NDE. Do you think NDE and other agencies that are meant to create jobs over the years have been effective?

Omar: The NDE is a good outfit created by the federal government to create jobs and streamline employment. I think there is the need to expand the scope of the NDE to cover so many things about employment. It’s not enough to just say to NDE, we give you N10 billion for example, use it to co-ordinate employment. There are other basic things that must be handled by a specialised agency of government like the NDE regarding statistics. If they can just wake up to say, we have this number of unemployed in the country, the government can then begin to have an idea of the picture and plan to take corresponding measures to reduce the figure. But where you don’t even have the statistics, you are just doing a peripheral job and cannot get to the main root of the unemployment problem.

Newswatch: In a paper he presented recently, the CBN governor put the percentage of the unemployed at about 41.6 percent. Do you think this is close to what the actual figure is?

Omar: No. I think it’s much more. I think the CBN governor may have used data regarding to graduates and students coming out from various institutions in the country. It could be within the region he quoted if he was referring to graduates from schools. But if we use data on the number of employed and unemployed people and compare them with the number of youths we have, whether they have gone to school or not, because it does not follow that it is only graduates that are meant to be provided with employment, we are going to go in the region of about 80-90 percent of individuals that are not gainfully employed.

Newswatch: Does the NLC have any position on the way out of the problem now?

Omar: We have not in actual fact come out with a position paper to say this is our own thinking. But we believe that there are so many people that are unemployed and that government has a lot of responsibility to the people on this. Although government should not be the only provider of employment in a country, government has the responsibility to facilitate avenues for employment for its citizens. This is what we are advocating.

Newswatch: Does the situation we find ourselves have any grave implication for the nation?

Omar: Definitely. Like I said earlier, it’s like a keg of petrol or a time bomb if you like. Youth restiveness is something that must be checked. One way to check it is to ensure that they are gainfully employed. If not, it will create a big problem for us in the nearest future but we pray that it doesn’t happen. We hope government finds a solution. When government announced in last year’s budget that they are earmarking N50 billion to provide employment, I said that is where we are getting it wrong. It is not a question of money. Employment creation is something that is supposed to be continuous, almost permanent in nature. You don’t hope to employ five people today, and tomorrow you have 10 unemployed. And then out of the five, after two years, you drop four and replace them with another four. By doing that you are not doing anything tangible. The essence is to provide employment to almost everybody as much as possible.

Newswatch: Could the growing rate of unemployment be responsible for the insecurity, including the new wave of bombing being witnessed in the country now?

Omar: Definitely. There is a direct linkage between unemployment and youth restiveness. People who don’t have any other avenue to channel their energies are usually ready to indulge in such crimes. And if you look at the growing number of the unemployed, one needs to get scared in this country. And government needs to be scared to a point of sitting up to face the challenges. I think there is a popular saying that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. It is relevant here. I will not, however, say that it is only unemployment that is responsible for the insecurity we have in the country presently. There are so many issues leading to that. But unemployment will surely be one of the reasons.