Nigeria as we all know is the most populous country in Africa, “ninth most populous nation in the world”, it’s the second largest economy in
Africa, the country is blessed both human and material resources. Yet the country is still plagued with youth unemployment.
As graduates leave school, they expect to have jobs that will cater for their personal interests and their well -being, because it’s a duty of every responsible government to provide jobs for its citizens, or the least, to provide an enabling and a conducive environment for private investment. But unfortunately for the graduates of this country, this is not the business in Nigeria.
In its effort to mitigate the spate of the scourge, the federal government, supervised by previous administration initiated a scheme called Graduates Internship Scheme (G.I.S) under the Subsidy Re-investment Program (SURE-P), designed with an ultimate goal to reduce unemployment among graduates.
Graduates or Interns in the Scheme were engaged for a period of one (1) year in some reputable firms, organizations and institutions, so as to make them fully engaged, to enable them acquire skills and job experiences
The Scheme provides succor for graduates who completed their service to humanity and craving to be employed in the congested labor market
, because thirty thousand is paid monthly as allawee to Interns/Graduates.
And it has been reported that, Graduates/Interns who utilized this amount of money became self -sufficient at the completion of the scheme.
To become self sufficient is good, but it must be with money.
Eligible Graduates who intends to apply for the scheme were left in total disarray, about the eventual continuation or otherwise of the scheme by the current administration of Buhari.
Youths in every part of the world are expected to be positive agents of social, economic and political transformation of a county if they are properly managed. But they would resort to behave otherwise if they are not fully engaged in real jobs and some skills programs.
Knowing fully the grave danger the scourge might pose, some developed nations give unemployment benefits to its jobless graduates.
It has been alleged that “armed- robbery, assassination, drug- trafficking, kidnapping, rape, oil theft, fraud, political thuggery, etc. were all the unfortunate consequences of youths unemployment in the country”.
Even the avowed covenant of the current administration it undertook with Nigerians to rid this country out of the pervasive menace of corruption would be a mirage if this monster is not tackled, it’s a spanner thrown into the wheel of it corruption drive.
Although unemployment must not be an excuse for our Youths to indulge themselves in crimes and other social vices, full wrath of the law awaits those who violate it.
But decisive measures need to be taken at different levels of government to tackle the quagmire, through the creation and establishment of youths/graduates empowerment programs.
To reduce the daunting task ahead, reforming of Graduate Internship Scheme (G.I.S) by the current administration of Buhari would be better, not the purported abolition.
Abbas Datti,
Kano
