N-Power, unemployment and peculiar mess

With the current realities of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, the country is in “peculiar” mess and on the brink of collapse. The situation is getting scarier on a daily basis. A staggering number of able-bodied men, with qualifications or no qualifications, are scattered all over Nigeria joblessly wandering. I’m afraid if something urgent, drastic […]

With the current realities of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria, the country is in “peculiar” mess and on the brink of collapse.

The situation is getting scarier on a daily basis.

A staggering number of able-bodied men, with qualifications or no qualifications, are scattered all over Nigeria joblessly wandering.

I’m afraid if something urgent, drastic and viable is not done to arrest the situation, the country may soon degenerate into a full blown hotbed of criminalities.

And the rate of crimes we are witnessing at present, which has outworn our security architecture, may only be a child’s play.

All over the social media – Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, the subject of discussion is N-Power.

There came the shocker.

After just 48 hours of declaring the portal open, the scheme has received over 1 million applications, according to a statement by the overseeing minister, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Faruq.

This only confirms the disturbing trend of endemic unemployment and poverty in the country.

By the way, the portal is still open, and many more are still struggling to register.

We don’t know the number of applications that would be received in the coming days.

This reminds me of my experience during my days in school.

My alma mater, the University of Ilorin, had called for applications from interested and qualified persons to fill just minute vacant positions.

On the day of interview, you need to see the number of people that swarmed the institution.

Some from Lagos, others from Ekiti, and God-knows-where.

As a young schoolboy (I’m still a “youngy” anyways) studying Sociology, I witnessed raw the state of unemployment in Nigeria with that nasty experience.

I could not have understood it better than that.

That appeared to be the first time I would see a huge number of people jostling for employment opportunities.

All I used to hear was statistics.

I was so baffled with thoughts about the future of the country.

 

Abdullah is a sociologist and researcher  [email protected]