Many of us were not physically present at the recently concluded Nigerian Economic Summit held in Abuja. A lot of people watched it on television. Even a greater number followed it in the print and social media. I consider the summit one of the few intellectual candles still burning in Nigeria. The Nigerian intelligentsia has been effectively muscled out of reckoning by one of the crudest forms of capitalism in the world – one that has little or no regard for research and development. Elsewhere, capitalists know that research helps to feed and refresh the cow to produce more milk.
So many years in my corporate life, in which I participated in the summit as a corporate delegate, rapporteur and even planning committee member, I had come away with the reality that the zeal of the organizers is always several notches ahead of those that hold the power of implementation. Implementation is usually lagging behind. This is probably why some people think the summit is just a talk shop without any bite. Well, I think the answer is both a yes and a no. It is a yes in the sense that the summit group does not have the capacity to compel action on the part of those that should implement its decisions. So a lot of talking may happen and action may not follow. It is also a no in that many people and governments have acted in line with the summit propositions without being compelled or even expected to do so.
Unknown to a lot of us, some of the few policy attainments we have made could not have happened without the summit. Indeed, the summit has helped in charting the course of our nation by helping to create institutions and instruments that made the economy more robust. Even Abacha, in all his focus away from the economy onto personal acquisition, greatly supported the summit. We give commendations to the NESG.
So many things were said at the summit about the banes of Nigeria and the tough choices we have to make to get our country up and running in the right trajectory to the comity of respectable nations. For me, what is important is not what was said at the summit but what we do with what was said. That brings me to one issue that was widely canvassed at the summit, and which I consider very important – youth and MSME empowerment. Very valuable airtime and tabloid space have also been devoted to the subject of empowering and recognizing the youth, over the past few weeks.
This debate of some sort was apparently spurred by the imminence of ministerial appointments. Perhaps, this was part of the distribution and sharing mentality we have held for long. Every group had to up its game and have a piece of the action. There is nothing wrong in very young people getting very serious senior government positions like minister, even at the almost ridiculous age of 25, suggested by one of the proponents. I have no problem with that. I call it early responsibility. I benefitted from it when I was on secondment as Adviser to the Ministers of Finance and Budget and Planning in the Presidency of Ibrahim Babangida. I was 32. I am still grateful for that privilege to serve my country.
However, my concept of youth empowerment differs slightly. I think youth empowerment should begin from the beginning – affording the youth proper training and learning opportunities preparatory to any kind of senior responsibility. Even early responsibility should not be based on the need to fulfil righteousness. It should be given to the young people who prepared early. I think we should go back to the basics of properly preparing our youth. We should stop thinking of university degrees when we think of proper training for the youth. Targeted technical training holds the key to youth empowerment in Nigeria.
If anyone visited a building site in Nigeria, the person will find that most of the jobs that demand any appreciable craftsmanship are done by people from outside Nigeria. And they are blacks. And they are young. And they are from next door in West Africa. What has happened to artisanship in Nigeria? We have left it in pursuit of senior positions for which we are hardly qualified. Go to the states and see how semi-illiterate youths are being used as thugs by politicians who often put them in positions they hardly can hold. The result is total loss of interest in any kind of training and incompetence. Soon such people translate to national leaders. That is not early responsibility. It is social fabric destruction.
Nigerian youth are getting too impatient to learn. No matter the benefits of early responsibility to the nation and individual, no one can deliver on a job for which he is not adequately prepared.
We talk every day about Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Who are the promoters of these small companies? They are mostly young people. A study of microenterprises in the Lagos area revealed that over 60 percent of the promoters were aged between 20 and 30 years. This preponderance of youth entrepreneurs raises some questions regarding their preparedness and capacity to handle serious or more technical businesses like food processing and such. Perhaps, the possible lack of capacity may explain the dominance of retail trade in the occupational distribution of microenterprises in the study.
In my view, while it is good to focus on and deploy more resources to youth-targeted job creation, we should not downplay the need to ensure that these youths are ready to fill any vacancies we may create. Otherwise, we end up creating jobs for foreigners while our unemployment situation remains. That is currently happening in the private sector-led housing industry where one francophone master mason gets a job and brings along a horde of his townsmen to do it. And no one should begrudge them.
We must revive the technical certification process for artisans – plumbers, carpenters and the like – and implement a regulatory regime that allows them to take priority over quacks in job awards. And equally prevent them from exploiting potential employers through irresponsible pricing, which is why quacks seem to have the upper hand.
Empowerment of youths and, by extension, MSMEs should be a process, not an event. Handing over cash or providing credit facilities for them is good but it is an event. Empowerment begins with capacity building – completing the required training or apprenticeship for a given line of trade, ensuring a friendly tax and general legal regime that is small business-friendly.
We should also look at exploitative business relationships that often exist between MSMEs and big corporations. It is farcical when big firms, including multinationals, speak of supporting economic growth in Nigeria only to force small suppliers to grant them long credit terms. Why should multinationals be funded by microenterprises through long days of credit? That is very close to economic sabotage because it ensures that the MSMEs do not fulfil their natural role of job creation. That way, government fails to meet its policy objectives in that direction. Although nobody can regulate the terms of relationship between business units, those who claim to love the country, and who can afford to improve payment terms for MSMEs, should do so without further prompting. Corporate social responsibility should extend beyond accolade-bringing and eye-catching sponsorships, and cover the less visible but effective national support activities like assisting economic growth agents of the economy – the MSMEs.
Emeka Osuji
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