By Isaac Asabor
According to Statista, a leading provider of market and consumer data where over 1,100 visionaries, experts and doers continuously demonstrate their collective professional prowess with data, thereby constantly developing successful new products and business models, “In 2022, the unemployment rate in Nigeria is estimated to reach 33 percent. This figure was projected to at 32.5 percent in the preceding year.
“Chronological data show that the unemployment rate in Nigeria rose constantly in the past years. In the fourth quarter of 2020, over 33 percent of the labour force was unemployed, according to the Nigerian methodology”.
Without any iota of exaggeration, unemployment situation in Nigeria as reflected in triggering figures have reportedly risen to an all-time high since 2015 when the prevailing government took over power from Goodluck Jonathan’s led administration.
As gathered, unemployment refers to the share of the labour force that is without work but available for and seeking employment. Since recent years, unemployment rate in the country has steadily remained appalling so much that Nigeria unemployment rate for 2020 was 9.01%, a 0.48% increase from 2019 which was 8.53%, a 0.08% increase from 2018 which was 8.45%, a 0.06% increase from 2017 which in the same vein was 8.39% and a 1.33% increase from 2016.
Against the foregoing backdrop, and given the fact that the rise in unemployment is said to be a sign that the wobbling economy is deepening and seemingly becoming unmanageable as companies are increasingly reluctant to hire.
Without doubt, youth employment remains one of the significant challenges Nigeria is faced with. In fact, addressing youth employment means finding solutions with and for young people who are seeking a decent and productive job, and are working but living in poverty or are disheartened by current labour market prospects. Such solutions should address both labour supply (through education, skills development and training) and labour demand (through job creation and an enabling environment for entrepreneurship), as well as the quality of work available for young people (including with regard to labour standards, working conditions and wages).
At this juncture, it is expedient to say that it is not as if the governments; both at federal and state levels have not been making efforts to create jobs for the youths but the fact remains that the challenge posed by unemployment is tasking and seemingly insuperable. For instance, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), in the bid to find a lasting solution to the challenge of unemployment, was established in November 1986. It began operations fully in January 1987. The birth of the Directorate was predicated on the effects of the economic recession of the ’80s which led to a drastic reduction in capacity utilization and consequent outright closure of industries in Nigeria. Equally, other macro-economic policies of the government of the day such as the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), devaluation of the Naira, privatization and commercialization of the economy, etc., resulted to massive job losses in both the public and private sectors of the economy.
At this juncture, it is expedient to say that everything that needed to be tried or experimented in the bid to ensure that the challenge of unemployment is adequately addressed has been brought to bear but they seemed to be futile.
To this end, it is not an exaggeration to say that one thing or solution that has not been tried is the Igbo apprenticeship scheme which is resiliently been promoted by Chief Uche Nworah, the former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Anambra Broadcasting Service (ABS), Awka, Anambra State. In the bid to ensure that the apprenticeship scheme is widely accepted, he was earlier this year the convener, National Summit on Igbo Apprenticeship.
In a similar vein, he was on Sunday, 5th June, 2022 the guest speaker, at an event hosted by a leading businessman, Chief Chidi Anyaegbu, MFR, (Okeiyi Amichi), Chairman, Chisco Group. Chisco, as the businessman is popularly known, hosted members of Umunna Lekki Association, an Igbo social, economic and cultural interest group, made up of Igbo elites, professionals and entrepreneurs residing along the Lekki, Ikoyi, Victoria Island, and Ajah corridor in Lagos.
In his presentation, titled, ‘Akuluouno Model And The Social, Cultural And Economic Development Of Igboland’, Chief Nworah canvassed for Ndigbo in the diaspora to increase the volume of their investments in the homeland, saying that if the homeland is not economically viable and attractive, unemployment will continue to increase, and such a situation helps fuel criminal activities such as armed robbery and kidnapping. In such a situation as presently being experienced in the South-East region, he said, everyone becomes vulnerable, and even Ndigbo in the diaspora will not be able to return home.
Without doubt, Chief Nworah has unrelentingly been at the forefront of calling for employment creations without minding the time and money exerted toward the actualization of the cause of employment which he unarguably believes in.
It would be recalled that at a media parley with this writer in February this year that he said Igbo Apprenticeship Scheme is an entrepreneurial model where an entrepreneur takes an apprentice and teaches him or her the rudiments of a particular trade for an agreed period. On completion, the entrepreneur gives the apprentice seed capital to set up his own business.
Having said that, he explained that there is no recorded history of how long Ndigbo have been practicing the apprenticeship scheme. Rather, he said what is obvious is that it is majorly indigenous to Ndigbo and over time, has become part of their culture and tradition, and added that it falls within the ‘self-help’ ideology, the ‘in-group’ philosophy, which found wider acceptance amongst Ndigbo after the Nigeria/Biafra civil war when Ndigbo were stripped of their savings and money in Nigerian banks and given only 20 pounds in exchange for whatever amount they may have in the bank, pre-civil war.
He said, as the Igbo proverb goes, ‘Onye ajulu adiro aju onwe ya’ (if people reject and deny you, you should not deny and reject yourself) Ndigbo then set about rebuilding their businesses and communities, carrying friends, relatives and associates along. Individuals, age grade system, town unions, Iyom, Nze na Ozo and other traditional Igbo societies rallied round in this regard.
He further explained that this determination to succeed with others also finds expression in the Igbo mantra of ‘Egbe bere ugo bere’- Live and let live, ‘Onye aghana nwanne ya’- leave no one behind along the journey of economic success or along the journey of life.
Chief Uche Nworah added that this meant that people that could already stand on their feet business-wise after the war had to recruit apprentices to serve them or to work with them in their businesses and trades, after which the apprentices (boi-bois) are settled (Idu uno) by their masters to start their own businesses. That way, the wheel of economic progress and development continued to grind in the South East and in other places where Ndigbo sojourn.
To this end, it is expedient for governments across the three tiers to heed to Uche Nworah’s clarion call for employment opportunities by tapping into the template of employment creations as evidenced in Igbo Apprenticeship Scheme.
