The tragedy of unemployment in Nigeria is taking another dimension in the public space with the published report of four Ph.D. holders and 200 master holders who have applied for the 774,000 Federal Government (FG) contract jobs which are just ₦20,000.
According to the Ogun State Chairman of Special Public Works, Senator Gbenga Obadara in an interview with journalists, he disclosed that “Four Ph.D. and 200 master’s degree holders have applied,” for the FG contract jobs in the state.
Obadara added that the committee started the distribution of the forms four weeks ago, saying that almost 20,000 persons have obtained the form from the 20-local governments in the state.
He said that 20,000 slots allotted to the state is a “a drop of in the ocean.”
Saying, “Poverty is ravaging. Unemployment is extremely on the high rise. People with master’s degrees and even Ph.D. degrees are applying for 20,000 jobs. That is the problem. It cannot cover everybody. We cannot blame the Federal Government.”
The issue of unemployment in Nigeria has got out of control and the people want to see things moving rather than mere media policies. This is because the government efforts seem to end with the media and this is not reflecting in statistics and in the lives of common Nigerians.
According to the Nigerian Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmad, at the opening of a five-day interactive session on the 2021-2023 Medium Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), held in Abuja on August 13, 2020, she said that unless Nigeria achieves a very strong third quarter 2020 economic performance, the country may slide into recession.
This is a realistic prophesy that needs to be tackled realistically. Meanwhile, the foreseeing recession will increase the unemployment rate.
The government rather is creating alternative employment rather than real job for unemployed Nigerians. One of the alternative employments is the 774,000 FG contact jobs in which we now have Ph.D. and Masters applicants.
Not that it is not good neither it is bad, because, at least, the applicants will have something to put on the table for a while but how long can this sustain poor family and reduce unemployment rate in the country?
Analysts have argued that one out of every two Nigerian labor force is either unemployed or under-pay. As published by the Nigeria’s Bureau of Statistics, the unfortunate statistics is one of the key highlights of the unemployment report that shows in the most recent data of the second quarter of the 2020.
An analyst, Yomi Kazeem, writes, “While Nigeria’s unemployment rate has climbed to 27.1% (up from 23.1% in Q3 2018, when the unemployment report was last published), the country’s underemployment rate—which reflects those working less than 40 hours a week, or in jobs that underutilize a person’s skills, time, or education—has increased to 28.6%.
“With a labor force of 80.2 million, that means about 21.7 million Nigerians are unemployed, a figure that exceeds the population of 35 of Africa’s 54 countries. Among young Nigerians aged between 25 and 34, the largest bloc of the labor force, the unemployment rate currently stands even higher, at 30.7%.”
He added that the Nigeria unemployment rate has tripled since the President Muhammadu Buhari has taken over the administration of the country since 2015.
With the expectation of recession, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, reduction from diaspora income, the unstable international oil price market, Nigeria needs workable economic policies that will boast our employment rate and not economic palliatives.
