N-Power Volunteer Corps Permanency Demand As An Exit Package And High Level of Unemployment In Nigeria: Doing The Needful As A Federal Government

The graduate category of the N-Power Programmes also known as N-Power Volunteer Corps, are the most visible, viable and impactful scheme of the Federal Government's National Social Investment Programmes in Nigeria. The scheme have over five hundred thousand beneficiaries that cuts across the 36 States of the federation and 774 local government in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory not exempted.

It was a twenty four months programme designed to address some critical sector of the economy; such as health sector, agricultural sector, education sector and taxation. Beneficiaries were given devices to aid their learning and employability potential. Though, some batch A and all the batch B beneficiaries are yet to have access to these important devices due to administrative bottlenecks that can be best explained by the federal government. And I urge the humanitarian ministry to investigate all the issues surrounding the delay.

Though,they were expected at the end of the two years programme to be exited into a "more lucrative and productive ventures". But that has never happened and that was why the agitation for permanency has lasted close to two years now. The beneficiaries were unrelentingly demanding for permanency from the federal government because they believe that such option is not only viable but also more realistic and genuine considering their work's schedules and their various trainings in their places of primary assignments. The snail attitude adopted by the federal government towards the implementation of the programme had exposed individual beneficiaries to unwarranted but avoidable embarrassments occasioned by some newspapers through their various newspapers' headlines publication which reported unofficial termination of the programme in January and May this year.

Consequently, some beneficiaries who could not faced such humiliation, ignominy and also perceived hardships on hearing the news decided to take their own lives as a result of disengagement news specifically the one by Leadership Newspaper in January this year. Many could not just faced the shame because of the fear of going back to the street to start all over again, decided to commit such abominable act. We don't pray for such thing to happen again! May their souls rest in peace. Amen! Beneficiaries are of the opinion that if they are given the permanency as demanded, they would make sure that their best is put into the jobs. And this to a large extent will definitely complement the achievement recorded by the programme in critical areas of the economy. Therefore, I urge the federal government to look into that direction to enable volunteers fulfilled their long awaited dreams.

On the other hand, unemployment is one of the most critical problems facing Nigeria today. The Nigerian unemployment situation is of high immensity. The current unemployment figure in Nigeria is put about 33.5%, which is very, very high. Admittedly, years of corruption, civil war, military rule, Niger Delta crisis, insecurity in the Northern part of the country and mismanagement coupled with the recent financial challenges provoked by the sharp decline in the world crude oil price caused by global pandemic known as coronavirus(COVID-19) have undoubtedly set backward the economic growth of the country to create jobs for her teeming youth population.

However, having realized the reality at this point, government at all levels whether be it the Federal Government, State Government or Local Government needs to come out with a clear practicable solution to address this issue of unemployment without further delay. I'm of the opinion that even if it mean employing some people to dig the ground and employing other people to cover it up provided that If such action could reduced unemployment, the government should not hesitate to do that in order to avert the impending danger that would be experienced if nothing is done about unemployment in Nigeria.

The government attention at this critical period should be employment! Employment!! Employment!!! As regard to youth unemployment, the country is certainly at a huge crisis point. Even though employment data are hard to obtain in Nigeria even from the government statutory institutions and agencies established for gathering socioeconomic data. It is evident that only in urban areas where unemployment is biting hard that job seekers register their need; which may contribute to peace being gradually eroded in the urban centres.

According to the World Bank estimates, Nigeria is one of the seventh countries that are home to nearly half of the world's population. Financial inclusion is actually on the rise in Nigeria but penetration in its poverty-stricken rural areas is still very limited. The government's regulatory support for digital and mobile-based financial products and adoption of blockchain technologies can help to supercharge financial inclusion.

Beyond this, blockchain ledgers have also been used in countries like India to create and link digital identities with payments. This has ensured transparency, and it also helped to plug corruption-related leakages in government disbursements to people living in poverty. Nigeria should emulate this and take things further.

More importantly, the federal government should invest more in the critical sectors of the economy through agriculture, health, education e.t.c.. Increased investment in such sectors could help in economic growth, and consequently reduce poverty and unemployment. In order to end unemployment, we must harness the demographic dividends through investment in those aforementioned sectors - especially for our young people. The late Professor Babatunde Osotimehin - former executive secretary of the United Nations Population Fund - said that “when countries’ age structures change favourably, meaning that they have more people of working age than dependents, they can see a boost to development, known as a demographic dividend, provided that they empower, educate and employ their young people". One of the low-hanging fruits would be to embrace educational reforms that focus on developing new skills through robust and well-funded technical and vocational education and training programmes for those millions of Nigerians outside the former school system, or who possess only a primary education. This could be done through private-sector partnerships with the uses of incentives and social impact bonds as well as boosting entrepreneurial ecosystems(with strong emphasis on apprenticeships) are key ways the government can help to spur growth which has been proven in other countries.

Furthermore, the federal government should expand economic opportunities and embrace technology. Ending unemployment in Nigeria will entail improving the country's economic productivity and opportunities for its citizens. This will mean investing in human capacity potential and creating jobs for women and young people, increasing financial access and opportunities for these groups in both rural and urban communities, and advancing technology innovation.

Sadly, Sub-Sahara African countries are the last frontiers of poverty in the world. They are as well witnessing explosive population growth, and the region is projected to grow by about 51% over the next three decades. The UN projects that Nigeria will have an estimated 398 million people by 2050, making it the third-largest country in the world. Though high population growth is not an automatic panacea for poverty. Rather, having an educated, healthy and resilient youth population, as in the case of China, is the best catalyst for growth and development. However, an absence of planning or an allocation of insufficient resources towards harnessing this bulging population could spell doom for the country.

To move forward, the government should listen to the permanency demand by volunteers and urgently see to its implementation because it is the right thing to do especially in this global economic downturn we found ourselves. They should also as quickly as possible inject into the economy more workforce by immediately recruiting more N-Power beneficiaries to take over from those to be given permanency. In doing this, they are not only helping our economy to grow but also, directly or indirectly providing solutions to insecurities, crimes and criminalities, and other social vices that may occurred in the country.

Finally, I will like to end this article with an advice from a Professor of an economics, Professor Edet Akpakpan, he said; "in a time of economic disarray, government should focus her attention on the people and their demand in terms of income and spending. The fact is that when there is weak aggregate demand, definitely the economy will be weak because most people may not have the income to spend. Therefore, the ideal thing to do is to deal with unemployment so that people can have income to spend. If the government create jobs and people's income improves, default spending will increase and demand for goods and services will begin to rise. This in turn will stimulate production".

Thank you for your time and God bless Nigeria!

By Evangelist John Unogwu Oche

Demand or beg?