Unemployment is high in Nigeria ….every one keeps lamenting on the rate of unemployed people in our country. Before you say –jac-k…, the blame shifts on the Government. In Nigeria, we all wait for the government to do everything for us. Recently, I went to make a survey at a surburb outside Abuja city called Mararaba/Nyanya, Nasarawa state and I was angrily appaulled by the poor hygiene I noticed among the dwellers of these areas which happens to be labelled as one of the areas occupied by most poor /average Nigerians, where they can afford rent but are being neglected by the Government. As my company driver was combing the dirty and bad roads of these areas, I agree that the government should come to their rescue but one thing stood out(in a sad way) about that environment—the people living there have very poor hygiene attitude…extremely poor hygiene! I noticed some well built houses having litters of nylons, pure water satchets and all kinds of rubbish dumped in their entrance. Is the government supposed to pay people to come and sweep their houses for them also? Why can’t the residents at least keep their environment clean? I saw people eating and smiling on top of heaps of garbbage and stinking drainages which ofocurse was generated by them from their various houses as well. Must we wait for the Government to do everything for us to survive in this country?
Coming to our topic today, our educational system is all about making Nigerians become graduates. Students are hustling for courses which they do not even enjoy but they have no choice due to the way our system works. After they graduate, the job hunting starts and you see someone who did Agricultural science searching for a bank, T.V/Radio job. What happens to your university certificate? If at the end of the day, such a person gets lucky to get the banking job, the job wahala and incompetence starts. It does not matter the kind of training the bank will give, such a person will never be an efficient worker till maybe after several trials and errors with his/her job position.
On the other side, some Nigerians who also did the course of their choice, also graduate and come out looking for jobs in different sectors of the labour market different from what they read at the university. Now, this group of graduates have skills and intelligence in what they did at school but are looking for jobs in other proffessions. If they finally get such jobs, how competent will they be?
Most employers also make this misplacement of job priorities worse by not being organized themselves. Why must an employer give a lady who read accounting a T.V /radio presenter job just because they are related and negelcting the exact persons who applied for the same job position but read Mass communications/Journalism? Now the lady who read accounting will come on air and will be mis-pronouncing names and falling all over the ethics of the job. Her aim is just to earn a monthly pay and not to SERVE.
Maybe the mistake of this job misplacement started way back from our educational system where students do not have mentors to encourage them on their career path so that by the time they leave school, they will be confident of what job position they can comfortably handle and not messing up themselves and the employers.
Go to the ministries, you see executives who cannot write good English not to talk of speak fluently. Yes, i am using English language because, this is a widely accepted language for Nigerians and, if you are serving the public and cannot communicate well in it, then you have problems at your work places.
Front office officials/Receptionists who cannot express themselves and answer questions correctly from the clients and visitors. Most of them cannot even spell names of visitors when filling out the visitors forms. What the hell is someone who cannot spell correctly and write clearly with good hand writing doing at a big establishment front office? SQUARE PEG IN ROUND HOLE!!!!! I do not want to delve into the appauling customer service relationship of such workers because this is an entirely different topic of its own.
There are workers who wake up every morning , sighing and feeling grumpy because they are going to work to do something they do not enjoy doing. Having a career is when you wake up every morning feeling happy and excited to go to work knowing that you are going to add value both to your life and lives of others through what you do. So those of you who hate their jobs but passionate about building a career and great busines empire, have a re-think why you do not like what you do presently. There could be lots of reason and today’s topic could be one of them.
In Nigeria job market , it is all about making big bucks….fast cash…. people care less about values. If you, as an employer employs someone knowing he/she is not trained for the job position, do you have the guts to complain when he/she spills milk everywhere at your company?
When the Finance Minister sometime last year said something about our youths not being employable. Lots of Nigerians never took time to check what the woman was talking about. They lashed out at her …even blaming her for the unemployment situation in Nigeria. What i understood from what she meant was that, we do not have graduates with skills and talents for specific job positions. All we have are theory gradauates who roam the streets hacking/hustling for any possible job they can lay their hands on which also does not help the economy to grow because, these youths when employed will never add any value to our economy since they are not producing anything we can consume here in the Country not to talk of exporting to make money.
We want graduates that can do what graduates in countries like China, japan, and some European countries can do. Train our students in job areas that will enable them to acquire certain skills/trainings which they enjoy doing so that when they leave school, they will be productive physically, producing things people can buy and export to other countries. Employment where all we do is to sell items we import from abroad is simply not employment career wise. Trading helps people to survive but if Nigeria is really going to grow economically/career wise, we must have skills and put them into useful means in producing certain things we can consume and also sell to others outside Nigeria. When we do so, then the idea of placing square pegs in round holes at work places will be over!!!
JACLYN IWU
