big ups to ijebuman and avocat

@seun

Your entrepreneural skills are commendable

I am in favor of all those who have said that it isn't govt's part to create jobs, but create the environment conducive for job creation by individuals.  Letz not forget one more thing - the power of the vote.

Suuure, pple will want to shoot me for being so naive as to believe that we could ever have a free and fair election, but come on folks, it is totally possible.  Again, we as individuals need to stop doing things that encourage fraud like taking bribes, for instance.

Paraphrasing the US declaration of independence - when the pple in government do not do what they are supposed to do, it is the duty of its citizens to replace them with pple who will.

I felt so much elated to read various views and discussions about the present rate of unemployment in Nigeria.I believe the antedote to the problem of unemployment is self employment/self sufficiency.Government is not ready to solve this problem of unemployment and i believe this should move us out of our shell to really think of the way forward to solving the problem.

As someone noted here previously, I was one of those who was brought up in the days of "Go to school (don't even bother learning a sport, u can do that after you graduate. The money you could make stands nothing against a college degree, even if it is in Fine Art ), get a govt job, get married, have kids, retire on govt pension".  I must confess that I am a little scarred as a result, but was able to break out of the mold, fortunately.

One thing I have noticed about nigerians, *in general*, is that rather than pulling resources together to do something big, we rather want to do it OYO, often not even getting the children involved.  Thus biz is of a small scale and when the founder dies, the biz dies with it.  I can list several businesses in the akwa ibom area (inyang ette, etc) that have fallen victim to this.

I just thought I should bring this up as well.  It, in my opinion, is a mental disorder (cd be cultural as well, who know?) that  can be corrected, fortunately. 

It is called lack of trust due to prevalent corruption. Many people, having been bitten once, are now twice shy about doing joint business with anybody. This attitude would gradually change as anti-corruption efforts bear fruit.

Is that EFCC guy really cracking down on corruption? I read it was largely to scare/witch-hunt the Third Term Agenda opposition group.

I dont have a position. I am only asking from the ones that see his work in Nigeria everyday.

Hello Everyone,

I must recommend here that you guys are too much. I read through all the discussion and indeed I was happy.

.

Rottweiler:

@Seun,
most people don't want government job. What people need is for government to create the enabling environment and infrastructure for private initiatives to take off and survive! The Minister of power and steel made it know 2 days ago that electricity will only be stable in 2056 (when I am dead). There are lots of guys out there doing things on their own but with electricity in a terrible state, they have been forced into other lucrative areas (oil bunkering, yahoo yahoo, armed robbery,etc). My company has been running on generators for almost 10years now! Can you beat that?
You talked about generators! Do they run on water? When we are concerned about emissions, global warming, etc. How much would a cyber café operator, photocopy center operator, tailor, barber, welder, technician, etc make if they all get generators for their business?
We should be realistic men!

When Obasanjo came to power, he promised to eliminate NEPA problem in Nigeria. But it is unfurtunate that it only became worser after billions of Naira has been spent.
What is happening?

Does it mean that we will never enjoy constant light in Nigeria?
I cant wait until 2056. That is rubbish.
The truth is that PHCN/NEPA problem has crippled many businesses in the country.
Tell me what profit can you make from a business which is being run daily on a generator instead of NEPA/PHCN? At the end of the day you discovered that you are running at a lost.

This for sure does not encourage young people like us to go into personal business that will have to do with electricity, except where there is enough capital to acquire a better reliable Generator set.
Let the government create an enabling environment for us and we will no more be stranded.

I must recommend what Governor Donald Duke is doing in Cross River, I mean the Tinapa project going on. That is a good example of leadership. Tinapa will create job opportunity for thousands of Nigeria.
People who wish to be self employ could also fit into the project too.

One of the greatest problem we have in Nigeria, is corruption and greediness amongs the so called privileged rich nigerians. They only dumped their wealth into bank deposits and never care about how to use their wealth to create job opportunity to the less privilege.

Imagine an individual buying a bullet proof car at the rate of Hundred million Naira (N100,000,000.00) just trying to create security for themselves. That money is big enough to invest where other people will benefit.

Whatever people think of entrepreneurial skills and thinking out of the and lots of ideas etc, the government has an important part to play in job creation in Nigeria. Let me digress a bit, what if you had this business ideas etc and you implement it but the populace have no money to patronise your business?? How would you make money. There need to be a some amount of disposable incoming flowing around for businesses to flourish not so? Back to my main point about the government. The government has offered no infrastructure to encourage business in Nigeria. There are many factories who are suffering from the burden of high cost of power, running their own gen sets, to be competitive with count ires in Asia/south east Asia. If there are not competitive, how can they recruit more people. Obasenjo has just bought a new presidential jet while many of people in the civil service have not been paid or had a pay rise for years? In fact they are thinking of retrenching 20 thousand people!! A new stadium was built in Abuja when the money could have been put towards a refinery or power station. We are now in a position where the cost of crude is very high and countries like US and China are  beating a path to our door step, why can the government not use this as an opportunity, instead of just selling crude to them, establish an agreement where by these countries can build some of their factories, I'm not talking about plastics and all those fly by night products. I mean factories that can aid real technology transfer, microchips, PCs, pharmaceuticals, etc, which brings high tech jobs and other high end support services to Nigeria. And with such incentives/opportunities/technologies available you will find even more entrepreneurial activities emerging.  In what way has this government invested in technology of any sort. The current universities are under funded yet there are starting new ones! The government has a very important role.

we have captured it all. so lets begin 2 move ! action !

but b4 we do that,energy is very key.i mean phcn or nepa(whatever).until that area is addressed by the govt,entrepreneurs will not achieve much. imagine someone getting a loan of say =n=5m and purchases a genset of btw 450,000-600,000. a stable power/electricty wuld hv saved him that chunk wch will do much 4 d biz.

as for d 2056 prophecy 4 a sustained power sector,may god neva allow dis kind of madness.i heard they(govt) r building 6 brand new power plants and phcn will b wound up and disintengrated in2 manageable units for increased efficiency(we r watching & waiting).

finally,our educational system needs an urgent reform to inculcate in graduands d idea of self-sustainability rather than hoping 4d non-existent white collar jobs !

nigeria shall b great again ! ! ! ! ! !

I have always wondered how unemployment can be high in a country like Nigeria where barriers to business have not yet been set up (the politicians haven't had time). In fact, I'm happy to inform you that the unemployment rate in Nigeria is very low.  The estimated unemployment rate in Nigeria for the year 2005 was 2.9%.

For the sake of comparison:
- The unemployment rate in the UK: 4.70%
- The unemployment rate in the US: 5.10%
- The unemployment rate in South Africa: 25%!
- the unemployment rate in Nigeria: 2.90%

There are only 23 countries in the world whose unemployment rates are lower than Nigeria! (source).

So those of us that are still unemployed should stop complaining and start working.  Whether you are a househelp, a driver, a secretary, a farmer, a manager, an entertainer or a webmaster like me, all that matters is that you are contributing to the economy by producing something valuable to others.

And remember, the unemployment rate is very low, so please stop complaining about unemployment in Nigeria.  If you can't find a job, our business section has more info on how you can create your own.

@Seun

The US unemployment is down to 4.6%. Where are your stats on the UK and Nigeria coming from?

@Seun
Do you really trust the Nigerian govt to keep proper statistics? I don't even think the census is right, to talk of employment.

The CIA Factbook which is false in many of its facts, I wonder what was the basis of these studies,
Did they take 1000 people from Lagos and call that the average for Nigeria. Many Questions have to be asked due to the large population density in Nigeria

I must say that this statistic is incorrect. I want to know how they Estimated this for 2005?

Hmmm, very false!

If the unemployment rate in Nigeria is that low i wonder why thousands of nigerians are leaving the country at such an alarming rate even to so-called countries with higher unemployment rates ala SA.
since our unemployment rate is just a "meagre 2.90", why are graduates still out of work 5 yrs after graduation?
Since unemployment rate is that low why do we have such pervasive poverty and massive social unrest.
Is it likely that the large bulk of the "so-called unemployed 2.9%" are from the nigerdelta which may be a reason for the bombings and kidnappings?
Since when did we as a nation start keeping "accurate" statistics?
CIA factbook? Since when did they become accurate curators of our economic data?

More lies and half-truths! Our brightest minds are holed up in foreign countries and our unemployment rate is so low, could it be because most of the employable population have emigrated to other countries?

Yet more lies! What sort of emplyment exists in Nigeria? This consumerist farce we call jobs? Drivers, traders, pure water sellers, recharge card sellers, phone booth operators, street hawkers, professional beggars, wharf rats, molue conductors, checkpoint toll collectors, e.t.c. Since when did those become classified as bonafide employment in serious countries? Since when did subsistence farming begin to feed an entire nation?

Yet more lies! Do we even know how many Nigerians and foreigners live within our shores? How then could we have accurately determined our rate of unemployment? When did the CIA conduct their census?

Still more lies and half truths!

It may be that most of these job-seekers are employed but are not necessarily earning the salary they desire.

@Seun

That is called Underemployment and i am sure that figure is in the high 60%. The 2.90% is manufactured stats. Count all the kids above 18 leaving with their parents without a Job. That population alone is more than 2.9% of Nigeria's total population.

we dont believe the nigerian own but ther rest seem pretty cool. how many of the english living folks live outside london too.

you need to understand the statistics of unemployment before you agree and disagree. If you are a student you cannot be considered as unemployed. Also, in most countries any form of disability is not even considered (e.g. clinically depressed people). In most countries you will have to be between age 18 and 60.

For a country like Nigeria, meaning about 2.9% (of those that are between 18 and 60 years of age that are not disabled and not students) are unemployed.

_{or something like that.}

@food4tot,

Also, in most countries any form of disability is not even considered (e.g. clinically depressed people).

You are very right ( ), since most nigerians are "clinically depressed" (ala poverty, disease, no roads, no water, no electricity, no jobs, bod governance, corruption e.t.c) they truly cannot be categorised among the unemployed. In that case, ALL Nigerians are employed and unemployment rate = 0%!

That is called Underemployment and i am sure that figure is in the high 60%.

They don't want to create their own jobs and they are not satisfied with the jobs that others have created for them. I call it wanting something for nothing, otherwise known as unrealistic expectations. Nobody owes you a job.

I doubt that the rate of unemployment in Nigeria is 2.whatever %. Its in the range of 70% - 80%. The worse part of it is that most business concerns are going under due to to the absence of a conducive environment thereby making a bad situation worse. True that self - employment is helping a bit but the environment is very distressing. Take just the electricity part of it and you get the feel.

Unemployment in Nigeria at 2%

Believe this, u will believe anything.

am sure someone wanted to type 29%

Is hawking Gala an employment.

but lets live that aside.

To create employment,

The Government should consider developing our energy sector.

If we had 24hours Light, God!, can you imagine how many Nigerians will be employed at least to run the energy sector effectively.

If we had all our crude Oil converted to Fuel and other by products In this country can you Imagine how jobs will be out there

for distributors, exporters, transporters, marketers of by products etc.

Most of the products in the market are not produced in Nigeria, even pencil, rulers, erasers. Guess it is cheaper to import them than produce them here, don't forget the Government even gets paid at the ports (NPA).

How many kids toys are made in Nigeria, no innovation, same old same old.

Nigeria has to wake up, This is the year 2006.

Things have gone digital.

And comeon Toys have got microchips in them.
Meanwhile who said we are not going to have light till 2056.
I hope he has been sacked. We need positive people to run our country.

I believe if the government is committed to giving us Light they can do it in 2-5 years.

If it involves building new power station get on with it , we have got money to start it all over from scratch to finish, it will save us alot in the long run.

Good luck
I know am miss yarnning.

I know am miss yawning

Missyarning ke? Abi you hit the nail on the head! Shortsightedness is the bane of most Africans, it is only here that we consider a nation that has a high inflation rate, collapsed energy sector, no infrastructure, bad roads, no rail system, dilapidated water transportation system, wholesale dependence on refined crude oil even when we produce and our consumerist economy and claim that we are improving or have a low unemployment rate.

i will ask three questions:
1. What do we really define as employment? Hawking groundnuts, roadside pepper sellers, pure water "industry", selling recharge cards, phone booth operators, checkpoint toll collectors, wharf rats, taxi drivers, molue conductors, grave diggers, area boys, armed robbers, yahoo yahoo, cattle rearers, generator sellers and local government motor park tax collectors?
2. Is it possible for private individuals to "create their own jobs" independent of the government?
3. Where would we be today if oil prices had crashed to less than $5 per barrel?

I have read countless number of posts advocating Nigerians to stop depending on govt and "create their own jobs" and i wonder if those people have ever been to other countries to see what obtains there and why things are so different in Nigeria.
Nigeria has no economy, all the government does is sell oil blocs to oil companies who then destroy our environment in the name of oil exploration. We are a consumerist nation, everything from toothpicks to matches is imported from everywhere but Nigeria.
In more developed countries, government creates the enabling environment to allow private enterpreneurs generate their own income by:

a. providing stable power - Without power, no serious manufacturing can take place. It is inimical to business for large scale enterprenuers to run their businesses on huge electricity generating plants. The result is either high cost of goods produced which is transfered to the common man or low level of productivity if any at all.
b. stable political climate - A situation where government can shut down TV and radio stations simply because they broadcast live Senate proceedings does not augur well for inviting foreign investors. When oil exploration licenses are given on the basis of rewarding the "boys" and are withdrawn arbitrarily on trumped up charges (ala Danjuma), then such a nation is not really serious about progress. If a successful local airline that has now become the national carrier in Gambia could be banned simply by the utterance of its owner then we are firmly on the road to economic doom!
c. stable economic policies - policies in nigeria, rather than emanate from well-planned agendas in which the people as stakeholders are involved, are as eratic as NEPA itself. Spurius policies suddenly pop up as a result of a minister's "brain" wave without consulting with the relevant experts. It is one reason Nigeria as at present has no well defined policy on education, economy, politics e.t.c.

Selling off ALL government property is not the way to improve the economy, even in the largest capitalist economy in the world, the USA, government is still actively involved in the area of education, transportation and energy!

The truth is only 2.9% of Nigerians are truly employed, the others are either unemployed or underemployed. Between the two there is very little difference.

Great Analysis by Daviddylan. Yeah the government should give the people "Tools" to make their lives better.

call a spade a spade even if its a bad spade.

We produce something! ! !

wait for it, and when you hear it don't crucify me. OIL

look round you, there is something Nigerian there. The car you drive, a percentage of its fuel is from our motherland. Its not the fact that we produce nothing that is killing us. The fact that we don't know how to get what we want is our problem (plus poor management, eemmm, and lots more).

I have read countless number of posts advocating Nigerians to stop depending on govt and "create their own jobs" and i wonder if those people have ever been to other countries to see what obtains there and why things are so different in Nigeria.
Nigeria has no economy, all the government does is sell oil blocs to oil companies who then destroy our environment in the name of oil exploration. We are a consumerist nation, everything from toothpicks to matches is imported from everywhere but Nigeria.
In more developed countries, government creates the enabling environment to allow private enterpreneurs generate their own income by:

Thank you jare @ Mr Davidylan!!!

Seun as u say the business section- with topics likes "What can one do with N4000,N15,000,N50,000" < all these are just enough for a second hand generator!!! so what next .,.,.,.,? ? ? ?

that's crap

I think Seun is spending too much time in cyberland, and is now out of touch with the Nigerian reality.

2.9% as unemployment rate?

Please give us a break!

That's just because you think a job is something located inside air-conditioned offices in business districts.

I have no 'pali', I work from a room, and I have no A/C, but I am employed and make little money. Others sell recharge cards or act as mobile calling center for people. Others help out in family shops. Others run erands for stipends. Some are in Ikeja village selling pirated software. Some women are at home taking care of there children full time and selling soft drinks and bread part-time. And of course we have the students, who can't be counted.

All these people I have mentioned are employed and there is dignity in any form of labor!

Seun

Of course everything you sighted is "A JOB". But even with all that, the 2.9% figure is way, way, way exaggerated. So when you send someone to go and buy you cold pure water, and you give him N10 and he brings you change which you tell him to keep, he/she is added to the employment registry as an errand boy/girl? The bottom line is that you need to stop defending the 2.9% unemployment figure. If we had that kind of unemployment, there would not be one bad road in the Country. Even Japan and the US are not doing that well. Your source is not reporting real life scenario. The CIA Fact book people, must have been in an AC'ed office somewhere in the US conducting this survey.