Unleashing massive job creation programmes in a sustainable way (1)

With oil at $10 per barrel, Nigeria can still double its GDP and make unemployment amongst its teeming youth history. The oil price collapse is going to be a blessing to Nigeria if properly exploited. Nigeria has the brightest chance ever to rewrite its history. The country is awash with one of the best human talent in the world. Years of mismanagement, corruption and blind leadership has nearly crippled this great nation. But as the recent 2016 budget has shown, this government is set to reverse the dwindling fortunes. I am convinced that with no oil Nigeria can attain double digit growth if its material and human resources are well managed.

 

Nigeria is said to have over N170 million people but much of this population is either unemployed or underemployed. To effectively deploy its material and human resources, the country must embark on development schemes that will include its entire citizenry. In a recent panel discussion at the Lagos Business School, CEO of Diamond Bank, Uzoma Dozie regretted the poor purchasing power of the larger populace. He lamented the challenges of planning in an economy where the vast majority has almost no means of livelihood. To leapfrog the economy, unemployed Nigerians must be made to actively participate in economic exchanges.

 

The current focus of the APC controlled government on job creation is a very welcome development. At the federal and state level, including some PDP controlled states, job creation is at the forefront of most government programmes. The current state of declining oil revenues has further heightened the need for the economy to be diverted from its traditional dependence on oil for its revenues. For the first time in much of Nigeria’s modern history, the federal budget has deviated from reliance on oil as its major source of revenue. This is highly commendable and worthy of commendation. During the last decade a number of job creation schemes have been hatched and implemented across the country irrespective of party lines. One notable observation which this article seeks to address is a definitive job creation strategy that will seek to create private enterprises out of social ventures.

 

All over the world, governments are chiefly responsible for leading and sponsoring job creation programmes. These methods vary from country to country. While the developed countries’ response to the issues of job creation are mainly dealt with from a policy perspective, developing and poor nations find themselves locked up in direct intervention programmes. In Nigeria, about 80% of all job creation efforts are tailored towards skill acquisition. As noble as these schemes are, their success leaves much to be desired. While one must recognize the life change and hope elicited by these programmes and acknowledge the modest gains from these initiatives, it will be good to examine some drawbacks and see how these might be corrected. In president Buhari’s budget presentation on December 22, while announcing the employment of 500,000 graduate teachers, he specifically stated that the business of job creation is that of the private sector.

For any job creation drive to be successful, it must have the involvement of the private sector. But because the private sector is profit oriented, the usual practice is for the government and the private sector to collaborate. In March 2004, at the UN headquarters, Kofi Annan, then UN Secretary General announced the launch of a new report, “Unleashing Entrepreneurship”, which urged NGOs, the private sector and national governments to work together to fight poverty. Today, a number of initiatives in Africa, including Nigeria have taken advantage of this synergy to fight poverty and unemployment. Nigeria, and specifically, national, regional governments and interventionist agencies like NDDC, CBN, Niger Delta Amnesty, IDP resettlements advisory etc, must rejig their job creation efforts to take advantage of new models of collaboration between these separate entities.

 

For over three years, the author of this article has worked with NGOs on skill acquisition programmes. Although these initiatives have achieved modest gains, the key challenge in most skill acquisition programmes is that although the graduates of these programmes have requisite skills to improve their lot, they do not know how to produce goods for markets. In the last dispensation, I can remember first hand one of the charges made by the President Goodluck Jonathan to Africapitalism champion, Tony Elumelu, to the effect that he does not want Tony Elumelu to just produce skilled artisans but artisans that are productively employed. To quote GEJ, “if you train someone to weld and after graduation he remains unemployed, the likely use to which he will put the skill is burglary and robbery”. That charge is putting the hammer on the nail where skills acquisition programmes are concerned. Repeatedly, I have seen a number of job creation efforts just end up creating the kind of welder described by GEJ. Last September I was privileged to provide advice to the chief job creation officer of Delta state, under the current governor. I did try to express my views to Eric Eboh, a distinguished professor of economics, on the limits of what skill acquisition programmes can do when it comes to job creation. I really doubt that my message was heard as the time allotted me was grossly inadequate to show global trends and what really works in the field of job creation.

(to be continued tomorrow)

 

Tunde Ekpekurede