THE UNEMPLOYABILITY OF NIGERIAN GRADUATES
The term ‘unemployability’ refers to the state or condition of being unemployable i.e lacking the average standard required to be considered for employment. It is quite disheartening after going through the rigors of becoming a graduate and then some groups of mentally retarded fellow in the labour market consider you as unemployable. This has being a trending notion in the labour market and hence contributed to higher number of unemployed graduates in the country.
The saying that “Nigerian graduates of today are unemployable” has remained a mystical fact to the society as the statement is being acclaimed by the majority of trainers whom in one way or the other had played a critical role in the emergence of these graduates. To me, it is an irony of fate which can only be described as opportunism or nepotism for the pioneers of such dogmatic fallacy.
I cannot ascertain the absoluteness of this trending statement but here are my points of emphasis;
If truly Nigerian graduates are unemployable, then the capacity and standard of the lecturers/instructors in the tertiary institutions should be seriously questioned…. Well it is not uncommon to find lecturers/instructors in the tertiary institutions who acquired their degrees by sympathy/favour and the lecturing jobs are given to them as compensation through the act of nepotism. By relation, graduates who passed through the training of these categories of lecturers would eventually lack the employment ability. But the irony of the situation is that such lecturers are the ones whom without using their limbic system echo such unintelligent statement….”Empty vessels make the loudest senseless noise”.
If Nigerian graduates are unemployable, then all the lecturers in the tertiary institutions are unqualified and deficient, and should be scrutinized. Also the giving of special attention to people in the academic environment in the form of “honour” should be abolished. In my opinion, even professors should be placed on the minimum wage scale since they regard the graduates they produce themselves as unemployable and this further implies that they are not worth the educational system, hence should be eliminated from the system.
The idea of this unemployability stems from the fact that students are only trained to pass examinations (“the copy and paste method”) and if students are to provide answers to examination questions different from what the examiner has in mind, they are downscored. This alone leaves the students with no creative mind but just the read and pass attitude since the whole system place so much value on paper qualifications.
Finally, the statement “Nigerian graduates are unemployable” should be redefined as it is being made by people who actually do not fit into any stratum in the society. We all have to develop a substantially new manner of thinking if the educational system is to be preserved….
Watch out for my next article on the moral decadence in the Nigerian educational system…..

Orakpoghenor O., 2015

This issue is always been talked about..The fact is,Graduates been unemployable,whose fault is it? The Educational system/structure/curriculum? The Government(lack of infrastructure in institutions)? Over reliance on paper qualification? or lack of personal development on d part of undergraduates? d questions r numerous nd need ans

This write up looks scrambled.
but it has some atom of truth to it.

There is no point in this. Answer this question :
Are there no Graduates that are employable in the country?
It's as simple as this, not every one will turn out to be the winner. Same way there are unemployable graduates is same way there are the employable. What you should argue here is the proportion.
FYI, it is not just a Nigerian thing.

The thing is the Universitas are not helping the situation at all. It's the students that are making extra efforts to develop themselves outside the University.