Niger Delta: Job Crisis As A Time Bomb

The Tide News (Port Harcourt)

16 February 2011

Niger Delta: Job Crisis As A Time Bomb

Ifeatu Agbu

The time-bombs primed by sit-tight leadership and rising youth unemployment in Africa are beginning to detonate in some parts of the continent.

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The question is where next? The excruciating socio-economic conditions that have put these countries on the boil are also prevalent in many African countries, including Nigeria. In fact the Nigerian condition may even be worse than what has sparked the revolt in these countries. The main point of departure, however, is that Nigeria has no sit-tight President.

Nigeria is indeed fortunate to have people who are imbued with an enormous capacity for soaking-up the pains and pangs of want. Here is a country where a president sought a third term, instead of two terms provided for in the constitution. He was fought to a stand still. Here also, jobless university graduates are eking out a living by riding commercial motorcycles (Okada), while those representing them in federal parliament are going home with mouth-watering salaries and allowances ranging from N10 million to N15 million monthly. Who says this unfair distribution of wealth is not an invitation to crisis?

So far, Nigeria has been spared widespread violent dissent. What could be likened to a revolt has been seen in the Niger Delta region where the agitations for resource control have thrown up all kinds of militant activities, including sabotage of oil installations and kidnapping of oil workers. Also in Jos and Maiduguri there have been Ethno-religious disturbances of grave consequences!

The country cannot afford to wait for things to get worse. “Job-creation is the need of the hour”. That is the view of experts like Dr. Ismail Radwan, a senior economist with the World Bank. According to him, 50 million youths in Nigeria were underemployed and three million new job seekers join the unemployment queue each year. The World Bank official wondered if there would not be social unrest eventually if the situation was not urgently addressed and canvassed a vibrant industrial sector as a way forward.

To buttress this point, the President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Mr. Femi Deru said: “The rate of unemployment in the Nigerian economy is currently one of the highest in the world at 19.7 per cent. Over 50 per cent of the youths in the urban areas are unemployed. It is a very disheartening situation for parents who had laboured and strained to educate these youths. The state of affairs has assumed the dimension of an economic and social crisis. There is a relationship between rising criminality and unemployment. We should do something urgently to create jobs.”

The way forward for the different levels of government and their agencies is the provision of basic infrastructure such as power and roads.