The ticking time bomb

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has raised an alarm over the unemployment time bomb at least a couple of times in recent times. It was not a false alarm. But so far, I have not heard of government response to the problem that stares us all in the face. I just hope the silence from the […]

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has raised an alarm over the unemployment time bomb at least a couple of times in recent times. It was not a false alarm.
But so far, I have not heard of government response to the problem that stares us all in the face.
I just hope the silence from the government is not an indication that it does not have a strategy for moderating the ticking of the unemployment time bomb in the shortest possible time.
If you would excuse a harmless hyperbole, I wish to suggest that even the deaf can hear the ticking of the unemployment time bomb. It is that loud and that ominous. Unemployment presents a country going through the trauma of a depressed economy with critical challenges that are at once complex and complicated to the point of being intractable.
The problem with unemployment is that the unemployed could be ready recruits for those with criminal and anti-social agenda. Other nations try to prevent this by instituting a social welfare system.
Our problem is compounded by the fact that, we do not have a social welfare system. We have no way of helping the unemployed cope with the rains. See why Obasanjo calls unemployment a time bomb?
Employment is the first casualty in a depressed economy because job shrinkage is inevitable. The blight forces companies and other employers of labour to reduce the size of their labour force. The technical name is downsizing, a name that seems to suggest a descent from the hill top into the valley.
When a company downsizes, it throws out a good number of its employees into the unemployment market, when the newly unemployed join those already pounding the pavements, the unemployment queue lengthens and the misery index rises.
I cannot help entertaining the sneaking feeling that in spite of what is happening to the global economy, we could have done better if we did not give in to our reckless and easy life of a wealthy country awash in petro-dollars. We can do without crying over spilt milk.
Unemployment in our country has thrown up some critical elements that are clearly deleterious to the social and economic health of our nation. It is easy to see that because of the apparent dishonesty in the recruitment process at federal and state levels, there is a systematic unwritten policy of inclusion and exclusion.
Young men and women who are lucky to have godfathers are included; but young men and women who have no such luck are excluded. They are the orphans who more or less have no hope of a just treatment in seeking employment from federal and state government agencies.
The orphans trust in their ability to compete with others. They are never given the chance to prove themselves.
The recruitment process at federal agencies such as the police, prisons and the armed forces is shamefully exclusive. All such recruitments merely follow the motion to legitimize the employment of the lucky kids with godfathers or those who could put in a word for them. The kids are instructed to apply online. They do.
At the recruitment grounds, the recruitment officers come with a handwritten list of the inclusive kids who never even bothered to apply in the first place.
The orphans are told to go home; recruitment completed. This list is usually compiled from allocations to the presidency, the National Assembly, state governors, top brass in the army as well as traditional rulers. This is not new, of course.
It has become more pronounced because it is done with such arrogance and impunity that you cannot but feel for the orphans, some of whom are brilliant and given the chance, would turn out to be competent men and women.
In fostering this system, we are worsening the unemployment situation and stoking the fire of social discontent in the country. This country can never be the exclusive preserve of the godfathers and their godsons and daughters. The orphans, denied, deprived and excluded, will always be here, at least as cruel reminders that the poor and the deprived are victims of social indifference.
No modern nation can afford to have two citizens separated by luck – one deprived by the system and the other favoured by the same system. This is more dangerous than the unemployment time bomb. The situation confronts the two tiers of government with the challenge of equity, fairness and justice. The Nigerian needs to be treated with fairness, equity and justice, We must begin amending our ways by eliminating the godfathers. Then, we must take away from the presidency, the National Assembly, traditional rulers and top military and police officers the right to anoint job seekers.
The kids seeking employment must be given the chance to compete with their counterparts. This would be the first sure step towards rewarding merit. Otherwise, I fear that the widening gulf between the young Nigerians with godfathers and the orphaned Nigerians would be tomorrow’s Golgotha.
The federal government would surely score big if we know how it plans to systematically take some of our young men and women, especially, the orphans, off the unemployment queue.