There is no doubt that the frightening insecurity in Nigeria can be significantly attributed to the sad level of unemployment we have. The most scaring aspect of Nigeria’s terrible unemployment rate of about 24% is the youth unemployment that is over 50%. As youths make up 50% of our population, this translates to over 54 million jobless youths in Nigeria. Adding the unemployment from the remaining segments of the population means that over 70 million Nigerians might be unemployed.
Nigeria, a developing economy, with the right population is littered with many but untapped and easy opportunities that can create 1 million jobs within 12- 24 months. Most interestingly, the jobs can be created with limited government expenditure and even with our present state of infrastructural development. All that is required is the proper and innovative understanding of a wealth redistribution framework through which job creation strategies can be crafted and implemented. In a simple economics terms, there are many ‘demands’ and ‘supplies’ that have not been connected to create a market (and jobs) in virtually every sector of the Nigerian economy. While in some instances, some of these demands and supplies already exist but have not been properly understood and upgraded to create jobs, in other situations, they are absent but can easily be created. All that is therefore required is to critically examine every sector of the Nigerian economy to identify existing and potential demands and supplies to create markets. Expectedly, with the creation of markets, jobs will emerge to service and sustain the market. Irrespective of how small the opportunity is, it should be harnessed and as they say, ‘every little helps’. Most helpfully, some of the services through which the jobs can be created are already provided for within our Laws. The main task will be for the government to encourage and ensure that both the private and public sectors comply with the laws.
In this article, I will focus on the Communication Sector of the economy to explain how over 250,000 jobs can be created within 12 months. In my subsequent papers, I will explain how over 50,000 jobs can be created in the Sports Sector, 150, 000 from the Transport Sector and 100, 000 from the Security Sector. Another 500,000 jobs can be created within 2-4 years from Housing, Transport, Education and Other service sectors.
The over 250, 000 jobs in the communications sector can be created through the further restructuring and revival of Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) and other related agencies. This can be achieved through the innovation of strategies that will ensure that NIPOST and other agencies deliver at least 50million items (letters and packages) every day in Nigeria. Fortunately this is very possible due to the untapped opportunities and benefits that both the public and private sectors will get through the usage of postal service. What is required is the creation of about one million post codes (addresses) in every state of Nigeria and then the detailed and convincing presentation of the inherent benefits through which the demand and supply of postal services can be generated. With good understanding of the related issues, a more comprehensive national data can be created which will help security agencies in intelligence gathering and management. It will also enhance financial sector development and inclusion.
Interestingly, the jobs can be created with limited government expenditure. The government investment will be for the initial start-up especially the purchase of mail machines. To get the 250,000 people, NIPOST will be required to recruit about 6,750 people from every state and FCT. The jobs I am referring to are jobs that will guarantee a minimum salary of N40, 000 every month for each employee. To ensure productivity, the monthly salary will be calculated and paid based on the actual number of hours worked by the employee with N200.00 suggested as a starting hourly wage. All that will be required to achieve this is the enforcement of existing laws and their expansion and application to other sectors where they are not presently applicable.
The idea is for the Government to lead a robust engagement of the relevant agencies to encourage and ensure the enforcement of the relevant laws to generate about 10 million letters that must be delivered every day at the price of N100 for a normal first class letter (324 x229mm envelope). The target will be that all first class letters must be delivered within 48hrs of postage starting with all state capitals and FCT. This will translate to daily revenue of 1billion naira and about 26 billion every month excluding Sundays. It is a business with potential annual revenue of over N312billion. Using an average monthly wage of N40, 000 for each of the 250,000 potential employees will give a total monthly wage of about N10billion. This will give a balance of about N16 billion every month which can be used for operational and administrative costs, savings and revenue to the Federal Government possibly to pay back the initial set-up costs. Saving 10billion every month will give N120billion every year which can be used for other job creating ventures.
But the question is if it is possible and achievable. Yes it is and can be started by requiring both public and private corporations to comply with existing laws and the new ones to be created. For instance, the banks are required by law to send bank statements every month to their customers for every account held by the bank. As we have about 40 million bank accounts in Nigeria, this will give about 40 million letters every month to NIPOST. I am aware that the banks presently prefer to send electronic statements to customer and have almost phased out sending out paper statements except on special request. This should not be so and should be reversed with the customer allowed to choose between paper and electronic statements. The banks prefer the electronic form because of its cost saving measure and the unwillingness to effectively contribute to our development and job creation.
It should be made a law that every paid employee (private and public) in Nigeria should be sent a wage/payment slip or letter every month. I am not sure of the total number of Nigerians employed in both private and public sector but I am confident that this policy will create a further 50 million letters every month. As we have over 100 million mobile phone subscribers in Nigeria, the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) should be required for a start to get the Telecommunications companies to make about 50 million subscribers ‘a pay monthly contract packages’. This will require the telecommunications firms to send a breakdown of the bills to every of the 50million customers every month and as a result create additional 50 million letters every month for NIPOST.
I am aware that this idea might be dismissed with the argument that the world is going paperless due to the advancement in information technology. I will return to this point shortly but it might be important to note that the UK Postal Service, Royal Mail delivers on average, over 60 million items (letters and parcels) every day except Sundays. With over 20 billion items delivered annually, it contributed about £7.8billion (about N4trillion) to the British economy in 2012. The German Postal Service, Deutsche Post delivers about 70 million letters every day, six days in a week. With revenue of about 55billion Euros in 2013, it is one of the largest employers of labour in the world with about 480,000 employees. While UK has a population of about 64 million people, Germany is about 81 million and they are obviously countries with better and higher advancements in information technology. I will return to this shortly!
As recently further noted by the Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission, non-payment of dividends by listed companies in Nigeria is mainly caused by the dividends not reaching the shareholders. This can be ameliorated by making it mandatory that all quoted companies must send notices of annual general meetings and dividend payments through NIPOST. Even though I don’t have the total number of shareholders in Nigeria, I am confident that this policy should be able to generate about 1million letters every month for NIPOST. Other ways through which letters can be generated for NIPOST include: All Universities, Secondary and Primary schools in Nigeria should be made to send the results of the students and other correspondences to the students’ parents by post. This should expectedly be able to generate about 2million letters every month.
The politicians especially the local, state and federal legislatures should be encouraged to communicate their activities and performances to their constituencies through post. I am very confident that given the nature of political competition in Nigeria, this will be very easy to stimulate and expectedly should have the potential of generating at least 10million letters every month for NIPOST. This is in addition to the opportunity for campaigning for elections through letters that this scheme will induce. I am sure that all the political parties and candidates will fiercely use the postal service to win votes and expectedly provide millions of letters to NIPOST. There are other ways to generate supply of letters for NIPOST but the idea is to have about 10 million letters delivered to different addresses every day in Nigeria. This should be the minimal target for the current or potential CEO (Post Master General) of NIPOST. It should be remembered if it is managed efficiently and robustly marketed to the Nigerian public, festivals like Christmas, New Year, Valentine, Democracy Day and other celebrated days and events will lead to further generation of letters for NIPOST. To ensure sustainable efficient management and profitability, NIPOST should be partly privatised after about 5 years of this restructured operation.
To achieve the above, NIPOST will be required and given a 6 months target to create at least 50 million postal addresses with post codes. An idea will be for about 1 million postal addresses with post codes to be created from each state of the federation and FCT. This will give about 37 million addresses while the balance of 13 million shared among the big cities like Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Onitsha and Ibadan. While I appreciate the difficulties of effectively engaging about 250,000 employees in this sector, I am confident that it is very possible through the efficient management of further services that can be created from the demand and supply of letters.
Within the collection, sorting and delivering of the letters, the idea will be to use a labour intensive management approach with limited machines. This will ensure the engagement of many of the 250,000 employees. In addition to the collection, sorting and delivering of letters, other services that can be provided include storage and safe-keeping services, haulage and distribution (including import and export) of light and heavy goods. Another very interesting area will be the provision of financial services and products especially to the poor and rural dwellers. As the postal service will reach every part of Nigeria (especially rural areas), provision of financial services through it will be an excellent way to promote financial inclusion and sustainable economic development. In line with my earlier article on Financial Inclusion, the effective provision and management of the postal service will help in taking formal governance close to the poor and rural dwellers which expectedly will enhance their trust and participation in formal financial sector.
Further, with a target to daily deliver about 10million letters, firms that can produce envelopes, stamps, rubber bands, jute bags, plastic boxes, delivery bags, uniforms and other ancillary products will emerge. This can be left for the private firms to produce but with a ban on the importation of the above products to support the local industries. The implication is that it will result in the emergence of firms that can produce about 300million first class stamps and envelopes every month for instance. I am confident that having firms with the capability and capacity to produce over 300million stamps and envelopes every month for instance in addition to the jute bags, rubber bands, plastic boxes, delivery bags and other complementary products will generate over 50,000 jobs. It should be remembered that all the employees will have to wear uniformed shoes and clothes, take transport, get accommodation and consume food and other services. All these will generate further employment.
The advancements in Information Technology will immensely help the opportunity and generate more letters and packages for the postal service. Provided it is efficiently managed, different kind of businesses will emerge such as foreign and local on-line shopping and deliveries, movement of goods (without movement of people) within and outside Nigeria. All the big courier companies in Nigeria are relishing the sudden jump in their revenues and business due to the emergence of Technology driven businesses like Jumia and Konga. United Parcel Service (UPS) with an annual revenue of $54.1 billion delivers about 15 million documents and packages every day and employs about 397, 100 people. While Indian Postal Service employs about 466,903 people, USA Postal Service employs about 626,764 people. It is the same excellent results and performances with other Postal Services of other developed and emerging economies with advance Information Technology development such as Hong Kong, China, France, Spain, and Canada etc. The ball is in our court and the time to act is now!
Franklin Nnaemeka Ngwu (PhD)
