Youths are the backbone of any society. Development and underdevelopment of any society depend on their potentials. Today in Nigeria, youth unemployment is alarming and it is increasing regularly which has resulted into different physical, social, economic, political and psychological trauma.
It has made it very easy for the youths who should have been into Nigerian security formations to be recruited into the dreaded Boko Haram, Banditry, kidnapping and the seccession led by Nnamdi Kanu/Sunday Ighoho.
Nigerian Political leaders must stand up to this current challenges and confront it head on, otherwise the future of Nigeria will not be brighter like the shining morning weather. It is a collective responsibility for all to end this confrontations that has killed scores of innocent Nigerians and rendered millions homeless.
However, unemployment simply means a condition in which individuals do not have work/job to do or place to go to earn a living. Youth unemployment means a condition or situation whereby youths (those between the age of childhood to adulthood) do not have job/employment or place to go to earn a living.
Youth unemployment is becoming increasingly complex to manage and it is becoming beyond a manageable stage considering the number of graduating Students from the Nigerian tartiary institutions every year. It is very clear that our Youths now goes to school only to be educated and not because they need job as those who graduated years ago are still in search of jobs. It is now a universal problem but prevalent in Nigeria.
Nevertheless, youth unemployment occurs as a result of many factors which include parental negligence to teach their children entrepreneur, neglecting agriculture and business by prioritising government jobs, over dependence on government jobs, neglecting small scale business enterprise by most of our youth, i.e tailoring, tea selling, shoe shining, carpentry, sachet water selling (pure water selling) etc.
Poor governance, over dependence on western education without learning business skills, lack of the establishment of companies by government and stakeholders, lack of youth empowerment, lack of will from youth to appreciate their skills and poor business creative mind to mention just few.
Consequently, youth unemployment produces enormous and multifarious challenges in the country such as insecurity, and crimes for instance, kidnapping, boko Haram, cattle rustling, robbery, theft, thuggery, drug abuse, prostitution, ethno religious conflicts, suicides and frustration, verbal insult and abuse of leaders/government, human trafficking, social hardship, 419s, it also tuns our youths into DJs and causes socio-economic and political backwardness as well as other social vices.
Thus, little measures have been taken by the government to tackle the menace of youth unemployment such as youth empowerment like N-power, trade money, soft loans and introduction of entrepreneurship as a general course of study in higher institutions of learning.
With this, accolades to Nigerian government for this little and under expected efforts, but Nigerian youths need supports beyond this. It is my hope and prayers that government will sustain this tempo by increasing fundings to schemes of this nature that will make it easy for the youths to access money as start ups capital to finance their small scale business.
To curve out the problems of youth unemployment in this country, the following measures have to be taken. Parents should teach their children business and business skills, we should regard agriculture and invest in it, we should revive industries, commercials banks and companies, government should provide jobs and job opportunities for youth, expand empowerment, youth should learn to appreciate small scale business, we should subdue our over reliance on government job, re-energise economic development policies, sensitise youths on the effects of unemployment and propose solutions to them, provide welfare to citizens such as good and qualitative roads, electricity, hospitals, schools, portable water and create conducive environment that will accommodate businesses and above all ensure human and physical security in the country.
Sani Danaudi Mohammed is the National President, Arewa Youths Advocate for Peace and Unity Initiative, writes from Bauchi state, Nigeria.
