[b][b]BY Suraj Oyewale

When I picked up a recent edition of Guardian newspaper and saw a full page advert by Dangote Group seeking to employ and train 2000 graduates for its newly established Drivers Academy, a number of thoughts raced through my mind. Expectedly, the initiative has started generating heated debate in Nigeria’s highly critical cyberspace. On the surface, one will be tempted to crash the roof on the Group for such a ‘demeaning’ offer to Nigeria’s legion of respected graduates.

But a deeper look at the issues surrounding the idea is necessary no matter the opinion one forms on it, ab initio; after all, lack of analytical review of policies and events, are at the root of the pervasive bolekaja criticism that has made public debate an exercise in waste of time and resources in Nigeria. The billionaire founder of the conglomerate, Aliko Dangote, is a man that is liked and loathed in Nigeria in equal proportion.

To some people, he is a business shark that doesn’t tolerate competition and uses his connection with political powers-that-be to tilt policies in his favour and reap billions in the process. To others, he is a diligent businessman in a capitalist economy that is passionate about his country, nay his continent, establishing factories across all regions and employing people. Dangote is the largest single employer of labour in Nigeria today and if the 2000 drivers join his payroll, he will widen the gap as Nigeria’s numero uno employer.

But what ordinarily looks like a noble idea is laden with a number of questions. According to Dangote Group, the initiative will ‘assist to uplift the operating standards in road transport industry’, amongst other merits. When one looks at the manner haulage drivers operate on our roads, one will easily agree that the industry needs serious reforms. Some of us still have phobia for long distance highway driving because of how these ‘Kings of the roads’ lord over the highways, without regard for other road users.

Not a few road accidents happen on daily basis due to the activities of these barely literate drivers. But for the grace of God almighty, this writer could have been consumed by their activities last year when on my way to my Kwara hometown for sallah, two heavy truck drivers were carelessly competing for space on a double-way road, at a sharp bend for that matter. The commercial bus that had overtaken me earlier was not as lucky.

Virtually every Nigerian road user has had nightmarish experience, even if of near-miss, with these ‘lions of the highway’. So I will be the first to agree that Dangote group’s attempt at overhauling its road transport function is a welcome idea. Other road transport business owners, especially petroleum products marketing and transporting companies, should follow suit. Indeed, the reforms should be nationally coordinated with the Federal Ministry of Transport developing the framework under which these operators operate. But a big question:

is illiteracy and lack of tertiary education the cause of this inhuman behavior of these truck drivers? If the answer to that is no, I’m afraid shoving the illiterates aside for the graduates in the business is not the magic wand to this monstrous attitude. It can be easily argued that one that passed through the four walls of a tertiary institution is expected to be more refined in attitude, but this is only partially true. After all, we will not look too far before we see OND holders, at least, in the current crop of highway drivers.

But this flaw notwithstanding, I believe formal training like Dangote Drivers Academy is expected to give its 2000 drivers will go a long way in instilling the needed expertise, and equally importantly, attitude, which can make a difference. There is also the question of whether someone that studied say Sociology in the tertiary institution now being employed as a driver is not underemployed. Well, everyone knows that the course of study at undergraduate level has little bearing with most Nigerians’ eventual career.

This is why an Engineering graduate will go on to become Bank CEO or CFO. Yet, some people have asked why they need to go spend four or more years in the higher institution, when they could have learned driving and become a driver in one week. But this argument misses the point when confronted with the fact that what one learns in the higher institution goes beyond the classroom teachings.

The exposure, the finesse, the interactions are meant to shape our being. This is why Dangote expects a graduate driver to make a difference. A bigger question –and the main point of the controversy – is: is it not an insult to the sensibilities of Nigerian graduates for a ‘capitalist’ Dangote to throw such a lowly job at them? This is a tough question for me, as I am not sure my answer will not be different if I were in the other side – the side of the unemployed army of graduates. Frankly, I don’t see this as an insult. I will explain.

Driving is a job long seen as meant for the uneducated class. I emphasized ‘seen’ because it is only a matter of perception, it is never a rule or fact that is cast in stone. Here is someone trying to revolutionize the job and give it a better public perception. If we look round, we should see that many of the jobs associated with the illiterate, lowly class in the society in the past are now being revolutionized.

Years back, we all saw farming as the preserve of the illiterate poor. Now, ex-presidents, retired Generals, and many well educated elite are into farming. Young graduates and upwardly mobile executives are also moving into the sector. I have a friend, a young guy in his early 30’s, that resigned his investment banking job for farming.

I have another friend, my room mate in the university, who, not waiting for any paid job after his youth service, went into small scale fish farming. So what are we talking about? It is all a matter of perception, driving job is seen as a lowly one because we all made it look it so, giving it a better perception is a matter of mental outlook too. If farming is no longer for the poor illiterate only, driving too is long overdue to be absorbed into the societally acceptable jobs, at least for anyone that couldn’t find a better job. After all, not a few Nigerians drive cab for a living in other lands.

I do not expect Dangote Group to pay its 2000 drivers less than N100,000 per month. If I guessed right, this is not an entirely bad idea. A lot of the formal sector jobs graduates die to get do not pay up to N50,000 per month.

I know banks that pay less than N50,000 for its HND staff. Now, questions for the Dangote group too: what is the career progression plan for these graduate drivers? Can a well-polished graduate driver ever become a Manager or Supervisor? Or will he remain a steering manipulator throughout his entire career in the organization? What are the incentives to make these drivers abide by the rules you teach them in the academy? I have some advice:

The drivers, upon completion of their course, should be absorbed into the company’s organizational structure like any other entry level graduate. There should be yearly appraisals and promotion for performing drivers like it would do to any other staff. Performance may be tied to number of accident-free journeys a driver makes, in addition to other measures.

The company may also consider as incentives hire purchase schemes for its drivers. Right of first refusal may also be given to drivers ahead of other staff when the company deems it fit to dispose a truck after a number of years of use. For a job that requires high level of energy and mental alertness like driving, adequate holidays should be part of these drivers working condition.

Of course, I am not unaware of the fact that, Dangote being a private organization, has the sole prerogative of drawing its internal policies, including driving policy, but this advisory from an outsider is not totally out of order, especially when we look at the fact that we are all ultimate stakeholders as co-users of the roads Dangote drivers will ply. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, Albert Einstein said many years ago, is insanity.

Dangote group’s initiative is a welcome idea if all the potential loopholes are addressed, and other heavy truck owners consider similar initiative (not necessarily employing graduates only) it may go a long way in bringing the needed sanity to our roads. Rather than descend heavily on the Forbes Billionaire, we should look at the bigger picture and encourage him. I fully endorse the scheme. Oyewale writes from Lagos.[/b]

http://sunnewsonline.com/new/opinion/issues-in-dangotes-graduate-drivers-scheme/#comment-10242[/b]

Memebers, what are your views on the above subject as I have stated my view on the report/publication made by Oyewale of the sun newspapers. Below is my view on his report.

[b]In as much as you considered Dangote's Graduate Driving position by comparing it with Nigerians who equally drive cabs outside the shores of this country, I think you should be logical here in deciding to support this move.

Have you once considered the HAZARDS of our road network and insecurity of the so called drivers? Have you equally sat down to evaluate that our Nigerian roads are equally a waiting coffin for road users? Can you drive safely on our roads in the nights like what is obtainable in other developed countries you are comparing us with?
Look at the insecurity in the country and see how people get killed and now you want these young graduates to face all these hazards in the name of assisting them have an employment? Why not take up the job as an example and let the world see you scale through on our roads so that you can be awarded a price and be praised by Dangote and others? What happened to the young youth corpers that were used by INEC who ended up being killed as a result of insecurity?

Nothing has been put in place to put our roads in order and also nothing has been done as regards to the insecurity hovering round the entire country. No electricity on our highways like what is obtainable in developed countries.

If Dangote wants to help these young graduates, let him use his money to open up mechanized farming and employ these graduates to go into farming.OR equally give them soft loan to start up individual businesses that will be supervised by Dangote Group to be repaid back after a long number of yrs.

In as much as he loves these young graduates as he claimed, I think he should be sincere to himself and his advisers that these two areas of “ The state of our Roads and Insecurity” should be looked into before offering the so called graduate driver’s job to instead of employing them to be killed.[/b]

My Brother, graduates driving cabs abroad do it not because they want to build a career in that direction, but to quickly put food on the table and mind you it is unofficial and most of them do it for a short while before getting a better job.

Imagine you studying in University and spending all this years of your life to build a career as a driver. My brother don't let your poverty mentality drive you to eat grass.

If the Herbert Macaulays, The Azikiwes, the Enahoros, the Gowons and so on have reasoned the way you are reasoning now as a young graduate, Nigeria would have still been under colonial rule, because, you won't see anything good in being a graduate than to do jobs illiterates would do very perfectly.

Never ever allow your stomach to think for you. Please, always think with your head, at least there is dignity in doing that. What would you tell your children. That you went to University just to become a truck driver? What a shame. You are a product of your inner mind sha.

Is it by force? Why are people talking like it is by force? Nigerians and their critical attitude.

Nice contribution by our very own Jarus...

In all its a perception of the mind and shows how decayed the system is...I believe graduates in their fields of study should develop a career in that field...asking for a chemical engr to drive a truck takes the job away even from the unskilled man...lets be frank, its a backward thought for the youths of this country and an insult to graduates of the country...how do we then expect to develop our youths to meet the challenges of this emerging and dynamic environment if they can't outdrive and practice what they have studied in the university? How do we produce leaders and rational individuals who will not sell their opinions becos of the temporary need to get job and feed a family? The system has failed us but it shouldn't be an avenue to insult the youths into selling their dignity in labor...God bless the wealthy Dangote, God bless the youths of Nigeria, God bless Nigeria....

Another endorsement article by a Nairalander:

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/opinion/46221-dangotes-drivers-academy-i-beg-to-apply

Dangote’s Drivers’ Academy: I beg to apply

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Written by Idris Bello
Tuesday, 21 August 2012
Several years ago in Nigeria, I came across a job application, and in true Naija lingo, the guy had begun the application with those exact words “I

beg to apply for the job of ....” I am sure some of you have also come across similar applications, and it is from that perspective that I choose to comment on the brouhaha concerning the plan by the Dangote Group to hire graduates into the Dangote Academy to become professional articulated trucks drivers.

“What was he thinking of? The indignity! The shame! After four or more years within the walls of a university, Dangote expects me to work as a driver? Aha, he has no degree, which is why he can even think of such!”

The responses I have seen on this seemingly simple issue have ranged from the sensible to the ludicrous. As I am otherwise occupied with other things, I had refrained from making comments until now.

I will not attempt to reel out all the reasons why I think the idea is a welcome one. Yes, I believe there is nothing wrong with it. My Great Ife friend and blogger, Suraj Oyewale has already done an excellent job analysing all the issues logically in the Nigerian Tribune of Friday, August 10, 2012. You should read it. But permit me to quote him, “a lack of analytical review of policies and events, is at the root of the pervasive bolekaja criticism that has made public debate an exercise in waste of time and resources in Nigeria.”

Hence I choose to write from a perspective most of us rarely consider, from the viewpoint of empathy, putting oneself in the shoes of the people affected. Trying to understand what it is that will make a graduate ‘stoop’ to the level of applying for the job of a driver.

Let me share with you a personal story.

A few years back, I had left a comfortable job in Nigeria for what I had imagined would be a fully-funded Masters programme in the US, but surprisingly all my expected sources of funding suddenly dried up.

Armed with a First Class degree in Computer Engineering from the Obafemi Awolowo University, I had quickly begun looking for a temporary job during the summer to hold body and soul together. However, my job search was encumbered by two things; first, I was on a student visa, which meant I could only work for 20 hours weekly, and I did not have permission to work outside campus. Second, I had not managed to shake off even the tiniest bit of my Nigerian accent in the six months I had been in the US. But those two facts did not stop me from trying.

Interview after interview, one written test followed another. I did not discriminate in the kinds of jobs I applied for. It ranged from

applications to teach in Kaplan GRE classes, to jobs as a delivery guy for parcels on the university campus. I was interviewed for the position of an administrative clerk on the same day as I applied to work at a day-care. I even considered that exclusive preserve of Nigerians in the USA-cab driving, but without a commercial driving licence, even that was off-limits. If my culinary expertise had not been limited to boiling eggs and making eba (the kind that bounces back when you throw it at the wall), I would have applied for a job in a restaurant.

Just as I was about giving up, and few days after I had run out of the last five dollars I needed to buy a calling card to call my folks back in Nigeria, I managed to secure a job.

It was a job with a landscaping company. No, not as a manager. I was to join the other members of staff, mostly undocumented immigrants from across the Mexican border in mowing lawns. But at this point, I had gone past caring about the nature of any job that comes my way.

I remembered mowing large patches of grass growing up in Nigeria. Not the kind of manicured lawns that abound in Houston. Rather it was the kind of grass we called ‘stubborn’ grass or ‘elephant’ grass; tall wicked patches of grass. I had no fear of wielding the cutlass again if that was what it required to make some money legally while I waited for school to start again in Fall.

However, there were some problems I did not think of. First, no one used cutlasses here. I had to learn how to trim grass using string trimmers. Being the most junior and inexperienced member of staff, I was also responsible for using the forced air from the blowers to blow leaves or debris into piles after the day’s work , before packing them into large black refuse bags we always carried for that purpose.

After some weeks on the job, and with the addition of some new employees, I was to move up the lawn-mowing food chain. I started using the gasoline-powered mower to cut the lawn, and also became responsible for giving the flowers a nice manicure. I no longer had to blow refuse, or use the string trimmer.

However, what made this even more difficult was that it was summer! In Houston!

Temperatures above a hundred degrees Fahrenheit (close to 40 degrees Celsius) were normal. And day in, day out, I was out there each day, in the hot sun, from sunrise till sunset. All for a paltry daily salary of $40!

Why? Because I needed a job!
And that is what a lot of folks who have cried themselves hoarse on this Dangote issue do not understand. When you are at that point, it is no longer about a ‘befitting’ job. The so-called ‘dignity’ that makes you think you are above the job of a truck driver because you have spent five years moving from one university lecture hall to another (sometimes without absorbing anything) will not pay your transport fare from Oshodi to Ojota! Neither will it buy a recharge card for your fiancée!

A few years ago, a friend of mine in Nigeria could not find a job despite having a Masters degree from the University of Ibadan. She had to resort to teaching at a ‘private’ secondary school in Lagos for a paltry salary of N6000 which barely covered her transport fare. Today, she is a lecturer in a Federal institution. But at that point, she did what she had to do!

I am a big advocate for people creating their own opportunities and not waiting to seek employment, but I am also realistic that not everyone is cut out for that. And I also think the habit of thinking some jobs or professions are beneath a graduate is the same pride that does not allow a lot of graduates to become entrepreneurs because they think they are too educated to run a restaurant or a food delivery service, or worse even, a sanitation business! Several of my colleagues in graduate school in the US worked in stores and shopping malls during their undergraduate years doing jobs that Nigerians would have considered ‘below’ them, learning skills that proved to be useful later in life!

Now, I also believe most of the people arguing against the Dangote decision have not read the vacancy notice from the company. He has not made being a university graduate a condition for hiring. All he has done is to include BSc holders along with NCE, OND, HND holders in the list of those who can apply. Do you wish he had excluded the millions of jobless university graduates from applying for a job that will pay a N50,000 salary? How many other jobs in Nigeria pay that kind of salary without the requirement that you must not be older than 23 years old, have a 2:1, and have five years of experience?

I know of many people who hide their degrees when applying for jobs meant for school leavers and OND holders. Why? Because it is simply a matter of demand and supply! When you have a country with millions of graduates and very few jobs, even Ph.D holders will write aptitude tests to drive trucks! Let Dangote be!
•Bello wrote in from the University of Oxford, UK.

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@Bello oya come home with your degrees and start a career with the truck drivers association of dangote....very funny story you have indeed, I don't need to be a professor to know how frustrating it is for you out there, but let me ask you a simple queston, what happens to the unskilled labor force that abounds in this country if graduates treasure this offer?...the call for self employment is unilateral but don't sit in the comfy of your highly rated status and dictate what happens to chaps that are in a system that doesnt work...am tired of listening to this foreign stories..be patriotic and apply becos you think the man is doing Nigerians a favor...am not saying folks shouldnt apply but why not encourage these graduates in more befitting ways...now you think graduates move from class to class to earn a degree, you forget its still your first class from this same universities that has given you the opportunity abroad...oga Bello be sincere and tell the truth when you see one, there are other ways to encourage these graduates...leave the unskilled jobs for the unskilled...you admitted that you went up the ladder too in your landscaping jobs, allow us too to grow both mentally and physically and don't ridicule us with your part time job....

Look, he is not saying driving job should be a first choice job for a graduate, but his take is that it is better than sitting at home idly.

FYI, Bello did mowing job in US when he couldn't get a better job while schooling. He resigned(or took study leave) from Chevron Houston for his current Oxford programme. So he doesn't need the graduate driver job today. He has other jobs. But when he needed one, he almost applied for commercial cab driving in US(limited by commercial driving licence).

Great write-ups from Suraj Oyawale and Idris Bello

Like both of them have rightly argued, the job should be seen as a means to an end and not an end in itself. Previous applications I have seen for this same position required NCE,OND and HND; and we are having this controversy because he increased the pool to include B.Sc? Like Werepeleri said "He's not holding people at gun point to apply".

As Bello concluded: LET DANGOTE BE PLEASE

What I keep asking here is, why should we not consider the state of our roads nationwide and the safety of the hazardous job you want to expose these young graduates? Have we not known that these our roads are death traps? Why must one come out and be given a job he or she does not want because he/she is hungry and must carry these trucks to die on our highways? Have we considered that our security system here is a complete failure in that these guys will be at the mercy of the armed robbers?

If you drive a truck outside the shores of this country like USA, you stand a chance of making good use of your time since they have time to operate as trucks are allowed to start operation by 10pm and exit out of the roads by 6am. Now, just take a look at our roads here and tell me the roads that are safe and you want a graduate after suffering to go to school to be exposed to dangers without any form of security. In as much as we appreciate Dangote's gesture to the youths, he should have employed them as marketers, than truck drivers. Creating employment for the youths should be seen as nation building and not a proposal for one's death.

This bunch of graduate dolts still amuse me.
Unless its your wish to sit down in truck driving forever, which is clearly not the case for most...

'Do not despise humble beginnings'

Dangote is not helping Nigeria with this program, he is rather compunding our brain drain to brain flush. Even if we all admit that our universities are not producing 'dandawi' graduates who cannot propose advancement in their individual fields, it still doesnt warrant them going to drive trailer.
If we take our eyes off the 'providing employment' and 'feeding family' rhetorics, we will see that this doesnt bode well for our country. Today, it is Dangote employing our JOBLESS graduates to drive trucks. Tomorrow, it may be an Indian businessman putting BSc as minimum requirement for toilet-washing or cleaning his office.
Over time, the term 'graduate' will mean nothing in Nigeria because we're actively destroying everything needed to rebuild Nigeria. We need someone to help harness the large human resources and channel it into proper use, not someone who will harness it destructively.
Families will be fed, yes. Employment created, yes. But individual and national advancement, NO.

BlackBaron:
'Do not despise humble beginnings'

word!

Y all de fuzz abt dis, it was clearly stated for Bsc, HND, OND, NCE...if as a graduate u cnt take d offer, bypass it and allow others with required qualification to tk d offer...d is notin bad der, is just our pride and ego datz playing on us...dis same graduate mop floors and wash dishes oversees...abegi

I'm quite disgusted at the kind of comments here saying Dangote should have done this and that...were u the one who worked the money in his pocket? Lazy ass people make the loudest critics whereas they cannot do one tenth of what they are criticising. In my opinion Dangote is a business man and not Father Christmas so whatever he does has to serve the primary purpose of benefitting his concerns and if along the line this also helps the society then even better. A huge problem with our people is this false sense of pride over nothing, I choose to call it laziness in disguise. No job is worthless, every job can be used as a stepping stone and as the first article pointed out there might be opportunities for career progression within the Dangote group or one can even become a fleet manager/supervisor elsewhere or even an operations/logistics person for dhl, fedex etc. I'm guessing there will be shifts so a focused person can even run a small business by the side or train further in any area of choice. People pls think and get off your lazy asses/high horses. Get rid of your caustic attitudes and move forward. There are so many opportunities in life but they may not all start of glittery.

the problem is not with dangote but with the government. If the minimum waage for graduate is like #100,000. He would know what to offer graduate. And mind you youth are fustrated and will do anything to feed their belly. The initiative is sponsor by imf led pdp government to waste more talents. One day we will wake up and do what is right. To me anybody can put a coma when employing labor, the economy dictate.

Many degree holders learnt nothing from school so not all of them will be able to practise or pass an interview. This driving thing is temporal and anyone doing it can simply move on wen they get something better, Abi dem cum use super glue gum dem for the drivers seat?
No everyone will be smart enough to start up a meaningful private business, we are all built for one thing or the other. Follow ur path.

Many degree holders learnt nothing from school so not all of them will be able to practise or pass an interview. This driving thing is temporal and anyone doing it can simply move on wen they get something better, Dem use super glue gum dem for the drivers seat?
No everyone will be smart enough to start up a meaningful private business, we are all built for one thing or the other. Follow ur path.

When the desirable is not available, the available becomes desirable.

Writing their CV for a good job in the future will be a task.

Okay, we now know Jarus' opinion on the topic. Anything else?

100 thousand Naria per month is a paltry sum compared to the money the present "illiterate" drivers make per month. In the haulage business the hire a trailer for a day for a 7-10 hour trip is not below 300k. The drivers make between 30-50k per trip. In a month that's surely almost or over a million naria.

This is so because of the huge dangers they (the drivers) encounter on our roads.
Dangote being the business man that he is, is trying to cash in on the desperation of our youth by implementing a more regimented structure where drivers are paid salaries and not commissions. All he is doing is to enlarge his pocket even more. He does not care about our unemployed graduates.

andyanders: What I keep asking here is, why should we not consider the state of our roads nationwide and the safety of the hazardous job you want to expose these young graduates? Have we not known that these our roads are death traps? Why must one come out and be given a job he or she does not want because he/she is hungry and must carry these trucks to die on our highways? Have we considered that our security system here is a complete failure in that these guys will be at the mercy of the armed robbers?

If you drive a truck outside the shores of this country like USA, you stand a chance of making good use of your time since they have time to operate as trucks are allowed to start operation by 10pm and exit out of the roads by 6am. Now, just take a look at our roads here and tell me the roads that are safe and you want a graduate after suffering to go to school to be exposed to dangers without any form of security. In as much as we appreciate Dangote's gesture to the youths, he should have employed them as marketers, than truck drivers. Creating employment for the youths should be seen as nation building and not a proposal for one's death.

Use your brain pls...everyone is exposed to these dangers you're highlighting even the so called marketers also travel up and down on these same roads. Bankers are robbed almost daily while commuting to and fro work

What if there is a course on truck driving/management in d university and pay is high just like driving a plane! Will there still be dis argument on d dangote offer!?

IMO, in a country where there are graduates whose means of livelihood is the job of a bus conductor (trust me, there are many out there), the scheme is not a bad idea. I bet those critizing this scheme have never felt the agony of being jobless for so long after NYSC and not having anyone to rely on for sustenance. Certainly, thousands must have sent in their applications by now.

However, what seems like a good idea might turn to regret later for some of the folks employed under this scheme. Just as asked by Jarus - WHAT IS THE CAREER PROGRESSION PLAN (CPP) FOR THIS SCHEME. I hope the CPP is not similar to that of outsourcing/contract employment by our so called banks and some multi-nationals which is nothing but exploitation of the highest order. HOW I WISH I CAN SET MY EYES ON THE EMPLOYMENT GRADING STRUCTURE FOR DANGOTE GROUP and see how this scheme is incorporated.

If the issue of CPP is not well addressed, then the scheme might indeed be a hell for these guys in the next few years.

I only hope the intense critism generated by this scheme will spur Dangote Group to address any loophole as to the future of the guys engaged.

True Dangote is a businessman, he will make money from this "opportunity". But the bottom line remains the choice of the graduates. Would I rather starve as a graduate or live off family and friends? Or would I do what ever it takes to get on my own two feet? The choice is mine to make. If I were unemployed, I know what that choice would be. We are too carried aware by certificates to know what really counts. Just my 2 pence.....

Every issue in life is a matter of perspective.
I believe every rational human vetoing will do what is positive and necessary to survive and live through every valley on the journey of life.
I have not seen the Dangote driving job advert, but common sense tell me that it is not intended to be a life-time offer to any one who does not want one.
When I started my working life at a bank, I was started out as a cashier, and I hated it because I thought it was lowly. I was a hot brain second class upper graduate of geophysics and in my mind, I should have been at NASA or in a lab somewhere developing cutting-edge sub surface data processing techniques.
As the months passed by,i rose to become a trainer and retail software operator. More years passed and my bank laid me off without apologies. I suddenly went from the cosy comfort of a good regular income to the bitter cold of none. Consider this, I had gotten married and had two children, with second one coming in the wake of my lay off.
I spent two years in solitary self-rediscovery. Few friends and family lensed a helping hand initially, with every one expecting another job to come, and with every one getting disappointed and withdrawn when none came.
Finally, I have landed a mouth-watering job in a foreign oil and gas firm after a telephone interview, as against countless rejections by the ones operating here in nigeria. There was always either an age/experience or complete despicable silence from their HR.
During the two years o spent in self rediscovery, I used my car for hotel pick ups, (i drove the car myself, sometimes being called up early in the morning while I was still in bed with my wife, just to convey a prostitute back to her apartment), I sought odd jobs like selling decoders no one wanted to buy just to be able to buy cereals for my children.
Now, I must tell you the truth;
The frustrations of being a cashier back in 2005 burned my will long enough to rediscovery my self. Out was this rediscovery that made me believe that even after the rejections by the Shells and Chevrons of Nigeria, that I could land a foreign oil firm without having had prior O&G experience.
Let everyone of Dangote's graduate drivers come with an open mind, especially after they have failed in finding more suitable offers. It cannot be the end of the road for them. Rather, it will be an opportunity to rediscover themselves.
We cannot question life, but we can learn from its answers.

For me its a matter of choice. But the point is, there are three levels of labour-unskilled,semi-skilled and skilled labour. Skilled should not be made to do the job of semi-skilled,neither semi-skilled doing unskilled labour's job. If we keep pushing people with qualifications around any how, when would the country develop. Engineers and scientist are now tellers,marketers,cashiers etc in banks! Who then is left to drive the technological growth of the country? It means we are just training our graduates to feed their stomach, we have not sent them to school to acquire applicable knowlegde that can transform the nation. How I wish we have visionary leaders today like the Awolowos of old. God help us in Nigeria.

As far as I m concerned, the white collar jobs in Nigeria are not meeting up with the millions of jobless graduates. Jobs like this is a way to hold body.
People should thank Dangote for this move and not criticize him cos of some silly arguements like Nigerian Road is bad, it's a death trap etc.
You have to hold body with something irrespective of your qualifications before getting that dream job. Either driver, selling gala, teaching, washing cars, small scale biz etc. Doing it for a start does not mean you are visionless. Abi you go do Armed Robber, Boko Haram, 419, Giggolo, Yahoo+, Ritual etc?

Dont allow desperation to push you into something you would regret the future.A GRADUATE FINALLY ENDING UP AS A DRIVER.GOD HELP NAIJA

Maxymilliano: Nice contribution by our very own Jarus...

Is that not why we are where we are today? I will opt for recolonization as against the rubbish that we are fumbling and wobbling and not getting anywhere - 42 years down the line

Are we supposed to read dat first post? Den d 2nd, 3rd, 4th.....
Every body juz dey post plenty plenty..