Nigerian Graduate Unemployment and N-Power’s Effect
According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, a whopping 80% of millennial University graduates in Nigeria are unemployed. Take this into comparison with the 28% in the United States in 2012, and one can gauge the magnitude of that number. Although this figure is troubling, it does not come as a surprise to many. To fix this problem however, current president Mohammed Buhari created the N-Power. N-Power, as of February 27 this year, announced that under the program, 350,000 university graduates and 50,000 non-graduates would be hired.
N-Power, a social investment programme (SIP) created under Buhari’s administration, was allocated a budget of 157 billion naira. The current naira to dollar exchange rate (N364-$1), converts this to approximately 431 million dollars. Although 431 million dollars sounds promising for a system set in place to hire 400,000 millennial Nigerians, the youth are not particularly exhilarated by the news and rightfully so.
In January of 2016, the National Assembly supposedly lost the budget before it was later found and signed. In 2017, the President spent many weeks in London receiving treatment for an illness that has not been disclosed to the public. It wasn’t until last week, the National Assembly reached an agreement to allow acting President, Osinbanjo, to sign the 2017 federal Budget. The SIP was included in the National budget to be approved and signed. Due to the chaos surrounding the budget, the national assembly, and the SIP it is no wonder Nigerians are not optimistic.
Nigerian youth are also aware of the corruption within the system. In the American society and in American colleges, the importance of connections and networking cannot be emphasized enough. Connections and networking on the other hand mean something entirely different in the Nigerian culture. This cultural faux pas often goes unnoticed. Connections and networks in Nigeria are heavily influenced by cronyism. Your connections and networks bypass the system and get you a job whether or not you are deserving or qualified for the position. In other words, you received the job simply because you knew that person. This is extremely worrisome because the only people in Nigeria with networks and connections are the wealthy, the politicians, and the powerful. Many fear that the jobs made available through the N-Power Programme, if successful, will only go to those with power and connections.
Besides corruption, another reason why education does not seem to correlate with employment in Nigeria is the quality of education. In the United States, Professors are highly educated, arguably ethical, and accessible. The education system, though not perfect, provides quality education and a curriculum that is challenging, rewarding and prepares students for the ‘real-world.’ In Nigeria however, Professors are infamously corrupt, deceitful and notorious. According to a student at the University of Ibadan “They (professors) demand payments from students in return for good grades. They show up on days they want to, they teach what they feel like teaching and they don’t care about the students.” This has crippled the Nigerian education system over the last few decades, in turn, producing graduates who are lagging behind compared to their peers. The quality of education is further dampened by poor infrastructure, electricity and health care.
Going back to N-Power, this is a program with true potential. Similar to United States President Donald Trump’s proposed apprenticeship program, N-Power is expected to move the country in the right direction through economic development and youth empowerment. It would cater to graduate positions, non-graduate positions (skill based apprenticeships), STEM graduates and many more. However, due to the growing number of unemployed youth, N-Power will not be enough to hold the country together economically. The youth expect more from the government, and the citizens deserve stable jobs, opportunities and a growing economy.