Tackling unemployment challenge in Nigeria
By Dele Fanimo and Collins Olayinka
TO a responsive and focused government, the deteriorating unemployment situation in Nigeria should be a source of worry, with the attendant social dislocation, exemplified by high crime rate and restiveness assailing the country.
Indeed, to further compound this, the global economic crisis, which had crippled businesses in the last one year, has further reduced the potentials for securing jobs.
Nigeria, against the prediction of its economic team, has had more than a fair share of the meltdown burden.
Specifically, due to collapsed infrastructure and erratic power supply, small and medium scale businesses are fast giving way, while real sector, which is one of the largest employers of labour, is near comatose.
For instance, more and more factories have found better options in the West African Coast, thus leaving Nigeria to establish businesses in Ghana, Togo and other relatively smaller countries.
The cumulative effect of this industrial migration is the massively growing unemployment and social tension racking the country.
Worried by this phenomenon, major stakeholders are aggregating possible options on ways of reducing unemployment in the country.
It is for these reasons that both the Nigerian government and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) jointly organised the first National Employment Summit under the theme, "Meeting the Employment Challenges of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis in Nigeria ".
Salivating the opportunity that the summit offered to flay the economic policies of the Brettonwood institutions in the developing economies, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Abdulwahed Omar, described the free market economy as monumental failure especially in the face of the on-going global economic recession.
His argument: "In the light of the global crash of the economic practices that have been produced and supported by the neo-liberal orthodox of the last three decades, politicians, economists, historians and various other groups have called attention to the need to change the way in which economies in the advanced capitalist countries and much more so in the underdeveloped and developing countries are managed around the world."
He further held that the policies of the World Bank and of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have been overtaken by the current global happenings and also that Nigeria should borrow a leaf from the unfolding events. He added that creation and sustaining jobs availability will continue to be elusive unless the Nigerian government re-traces its over-dependence on the neo-liberal economic policies.
Omar further justified his points: "The kernel of this orthodoxy is that national development and growth are best guaranteed when the market or the private sector is allowed to lead the process. Within the framework, the role of the state is greatly circumscribed; it is not expected to regulate conditions and behaviour in the market. Neither is the state also expected to become involved in direct investment in economic enterprises. It is for this reason that, in Nigeria, the whole onslaught of the privatisation campaign was directed at ensuring that even the few economic enterprises owned by the state, including those that were turning in huge profits, were handed over, quite very fraudulently, to the private sector."
The above scenario, according to the NLC chief, resulted into massive loss of jobs across the country and across sectors, which is equally playing huge role in the continued expansion of unemployment frontiers in the country.
He said that the divestment of government from providing social services created more poverty, more unemployment and more ill-health for the Nigerian people.
The economic figures bandit about which became points of reference for achievement by the Nigerian government only led to, ironically, increased unavailability of job opportunities for the people.
"While we were told that economy was growing by more than six percentage points annually, more and more people were being unemployed. We did all of these in the name of the ideology of the market," Omar posited.
The way forward to creating massive employment is for government to lead the way rather than the private sector in the development process.
He highlighted that the Nigerian State has to be involved as a major player in the establishment and management of economic and other forms of enterprises in order to promote jobs, development and growth.
This role of government, according to the national umbrella body of the Nigerian workers, "dictates the need for the Nigerian State to take back the public enterprises such as Eleme Petrochemicals Company, Aladja Steel Company and Ajaokuta Steel Plant that were distributed by government as handouts to people in the private sector. Very importantly, it also means that the Nigerian State must return to the macroeconomic model of development planning that characterised our development efforts in the earlier and certainly, on the basis of all evidence, the most development and growth oriented period in our history."
President Umaru Yar'Adua, who spoke through the Minister of Labour and Productivity, observed that previous efforts at mitigating the growing number of unemployment is yet to abate but stressed that the current administration attaches high premium on the generation of massive employment, which was underscored by including job creation as a strategy to combat poverty in his seven-point agenda.
The President said: "The recognition of the importance of employment as the tool for poverty eradication in the pursuit of individual and national development informed the decision of this administration to articulate them as a key component of the seven-point agenda. It is thus one of the avowed strategies of meeting the objectives of the national vision being among the 20 best developed countries in the year 2020."
The gender dimension of unemployment in Nigeria got the attention of the United Nations Resident Co-ordinator in Nigeria, Alberic Kacou. He said if Nigeria was to overcome the unemployment challenge, it must pay more than passive attention to women who are out of job.
"The gender aspect of unemployment is also very important and calls for more action. Data on the Nigerian working-age population that is not part of the workforce shows that the share of females is at least three times that of males," he stated.
As a panacea to providing massive employment, he said deliberate steps should be taken by all the stakeholders to explore almost boundless opportunities that the agriculture sector holds for employment generation.
The Nigeria United Nations (UN) head stated: "Therefore, with the vast majority of the workforce employed in agriculture and the informal economy, or even casually, efforts targeting pro-poor growth should revolve around the agricultural sector, services, and sectors such as manufacturing and construction that have been identified as being capable of providing 'high quality' employment oriented growth."
He added that under the new United Nations Development Assistance Framework II (UNDAF II) for 2009 to 2012, the UN office in Nigeria is working with the Nigerian government to fulfil the "wealth creation and employment" component of the seven-point agenda through its "Increased Productivity for Wealth Creation".
The Assistant Director General and Regional Director of the International Labour Organisation for Africa, Mr. Charles Dan, said for the African continent, the challenges posed by the global economic crisis is deeper than any stimuli fiscal packages or financial bailouts. He explained that the issue at stake is a structural and a political one.
His words: "Indeed Africa is hit by through five key external transmission channels: export commodities - foreign direct investment - remittances of migrant workers - tourism - and official development assistance. What the implications of this global crisis reveal is the need for Africa's development process to move from over-dependency on external led growth to more localisation and more regional integration. And this is precisely what the first Nigeria employment summit is also about - a paradigm shift towards more economic localisation for decent work. It also means more sustainable enterprises, more confidence in our local productions. And more regional integration in a fair globalisation means more intra-African trade and more social policy co-operation across economic sectors."
He also stressed that the world is not facing just a global financial and economic crisis but equally facing global job crisis.
"As the crisis continues to spread and job losses mount, worldwide unemployment could increase by at least 38 million by the end of this year. Likewise, vulnerable employment is expected to rise by some 25 million. The majority of the increase is expected to occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. As was the case in previous crises, this could generate substantial downward pressure on informal economy wages. So we are facing a global job crisis and a global response is needed," he said.
He hinted that the global attention dimension of the solution informed the decision of the ILO to call for a summit on the global job crisis, which is scheduled to hold between June 15 and 16 in Geneva, Switzerland during its yearly International Labour Conference.
He revealed that the ILO Director General, Juan Somavia, will, in his report, propose that the conference adopts a "global jobs pact" to boost the employment rich economic recovery that working families are expecting around the world. The expected global jobs pact will combine national action, agreed nationally, with global action, agreed globally.
He assured that the outcome of the Nigeria employment summit will be fed into discussions of the proposed global job pact and lauded the initiative's contribution to employment generation efforts at the West African region.
"The ILO Regional Office for Africa shares your (Nigeria's) views that the summit must be followed by concrete action. We are therefore proposing to organise within the coming months an ILO multi-disciplinary technical co-operation mission to Nigeria with the aim of supporting the development of your National Employment Programme of Action - with a special attention on youth employment and women entrepreneurship and a particular focus on the social economy," he stated.
He submitted that the ILO office in Africa sees social economy, which comprised co-operatives, micro-credit, social finance, local development and community-based initiatives as the "training bridge" and the decent work development path between formal and informal economies.
The President of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, observed that stimulus packages around the world are not traditionally geared towards job creation but towards financial bailouts and tax cuts, which underscores the urgent need to convey a forum where strategies to create new jobs should be encouraged.
The ECOWAS Scribe added that both the public and private sectors at national levels must forge the required synergy to develop strategies to create an enabling environment for creation of new jobs as a way out of the economic crisis.
Again, he said: "Directly associated to the above is encouraging all tiers of government structures to imbibe the tradition of good governance and transparency in the day to day running of their activities. These actions will lead to greater economic vibrancy and subsequently support economic recovery. The interventions needed may require sacrifice and understanding on the part of all. I call on all the stakeholders to put efforts together having in mind that our collective future strictly depends on our sincere efforts today to reconstruct our economies based on self effort, hard work and constructive engagement with relevant parties to create new jobs for our teeming population."
The Minister of Labour and Productivity, Adetokunbo Kayode (SAN), painted a worrying picture of the global crunch to the already worsening unemployment situation in Nigeria. He said that the credit crunch has led to many Nigerians abroad returning home to make matter worst as they are now returning to compound the congested unemployment population.
His words: "The current unemployment situation in Nigeria will be further worsen by influx of Nigerians who have lost their jobs in Europe and other parts of the world who would be returning home to join the already labour market. The future of employment situation in Nigeria looks bleak and discomforting. We must not wait to be overwhelmed by these situations. The time to act is now as future generations will not forgive us if we continue to abdicate our collective responsibility to put in motion the machinery that will guarantee a secured future for our children. With determination, commitment, dedication and sincerity of purpose, the challenge can be surmounted."
Hassan Sunmonu, the General Secretary of the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU), said the need to always domesticate any foreign economic policy to be in consonance with the collective aspirations of the African people cannot be over-emphasised.
He said: "We have a lot of opportunities to create decent employment and banish poverty for life from the African continent. There is no reason anybody in Nigeria should be poor. What we need is to put our acts right. We need good leadership, commitment of both the leaders and the people of Nigeria and a strong determination to get out of poverty."
Sunmonu, who is the founding president of the NLC, lauded the Minister of Labour and Productivity for organising the first summit on employment generation.
The OATUU Scribe declared: "I am very happy that I did not miss this employment summit. It has been very useful and all the data supplied were very useful. It gives us all the possibilities for taking Nigeria out of the present rot. To do the right things and get our leaders to develop appropriate political will, punish corruption and do away with impunity."
