Why Buhari cannot solve Nigeria’s economic problem unless there is paradigm shift in job creation
Editor's note: Olajire Philip, the NAIJ.com partner blogger, in the concluding part of this article, explains why Nigerian entrepreneurship is a scam and a multiplier of poverty. He also says that entrepreneurship and vocational education was postulated because of the inability of successive governments to provide jobs for fresh graduates.
He could be contacted via: oneolajire2000@yahoo.co.uk
More details in NAIJ.com’s step-by-step guide for guest bloggers.
Entrepreneurship is the only solution being utilised by successive administrations to tackle the problem of mass unemployment. Entrepreneurship in Nigeria is scam, an inherent failure because it has failed to create jobs while it has also handicapped our graduates and youths from creating jobs.
A graduate turned shoemaker due to unemployment rate in Nigeria
Firstly, why are graduates being persuaded into vocational education and entrepreneurship? The reason graduates are told to engage in entrepreneurship (businesses as making pop-corn, liquid soap, plantain chips, cakes and so on) is not that there are no jobs; it is because graduates are poorly educated to create jobs.
READ ALSO: Why Nigerian entrepreneurship is a scam and a multiplier of poverty
Consider a typical electrical engineering graduate of a Nigerian university/polytechnic, who has adequate classroom/theoretical training but lacks requisite practical training, would find it difficult securing a job that needs practical experiences in electrical engineering. Likewise, he will find it almost impossible to set up an electrical engineering business.
However, the difficulty in securing job opportunities as well as job creation is not only limited to electrical engineers, it is a fact that graduates of other courses are not left out in this precarious situation.
The electrical engineering graduates are supposed to be in the fore-front of design and manufacturing of solar panels, electricity generation turbines, transformers and other power generation, transmission and distribution facilities to help solve the power problem in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, the typical Nigerian electrical engineering graduate went to a campus blessed with empty labs and obsolete workshops, so how could he have acquired practical skills to invent, innovate or replicate?
Employers don't make things easy for the fresh graduate because it is being required of him to have about five years working experience before he could get employed. As a result of the inability of successive governments to provide jobs for fresh graduates, entrepreneurship and vocational education was postulated. So, the electrical engineering graduate starts thinking of how to become an entrepreneur in car wash, frying akara, hair dressing, and laundry and so on. What an aberration!
At this juncture, I have categorised the types of entrepreneurs that exists in the world into four.
1. Capital entrepreneurs
They are people with capital to invest in any kind of business they love. Many are into importation of finished goods while some are into manufacturing and service provision. Some are 'Dangote-like', because they employ expatriates as well as import machines to set up large companies. They 'sometimes' invest in research (especially in developed countries) in order to have innovative products.
2. Conditional Entrepreneurs
They are people who became overnight entrepreneurs due to unemployment, profiteering and availability of extra income. They are mostly novices when it comes to entrepreneurship. This is the category our graduates belong, as they are being forced to acquire vocational skills because the government has no job for them.
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3. Innovative entrepreneurs
They are products of qualitative education as well as research in science and technology. They make prototype products, form enterprises by commercialising their products, later grow them into large scale ventures. Microsoft Corporation, General Electric and Facebook are few examples of innovative entrepreneurship.
4. Traditional entrepreneurs
These are the entrepreneurs we have always been having around, such as restaurants, retailers, taxi, drivers, bricklayers, event decorators, bakers, carpenters and mechanics. Only few small scale entrepreneurship of these kind of do grow into medium ones. No nation has ever achieved development by laying emphasis on this type of entrepreneurship.
Capital entrepreneurship as well as enormous investment in innovative entrepreneurship is the two major focuses of nations that have achieved rapid development. Nigeria spends so much on the development of traditional and conditional entrepreneurship but has totally neglected the development of innovative entrepreneurs. This is why poverty and unemployment is being multiplied in Nigeria. Capital entrepreneurs are so few in Nigeria, so their impact on the economy is very limited.
Entrepreneurship is a failed remedy. A remedy provided for unemployed graduates after they have spent many years in the higher institutions without having job creation capabilities. Graduates don't need monies to be turned chin-chin and pop-corn entrepreneurs overnight, they needed the monies for intensive trainings, highly equipped laboratories and workshop while as undergraduates.
The present fall in the value of naira is basically a problem caused by the types of entrepreneurship we practice. The major foreign exchange earner Nigeria has is crude oil, but capital entrepreneurs import almost every other item, even items produced locally in large quantities, such as toothpaste, shoes, palm oil, drinks and furniture.
For example, if Nigeria earned 1000 dollars daily when crude oil was sold at about 100dollars per barrel in 2013, entrepreneurs made demand of goods worth 500 dollars same day, no items they needed to import.
But Nigerians now earns 400 dollars daily in 2016 when crude oil sells for 40 dollars per barrel and dollar demand for importation remains the same. It is practically impossible for the government to release the whole income for importation. So this results in scarcity of the dollar which culminates into attempt to devalue the naira.
Undergraduates studying agricultural courses should be empowered (both with finance and modern implements) to own farms before and after graduation. I believe funding of our agriculture student/graduates is possible since the government can pay huge sums to medical students during their internships.
We need to fix the graduates of agriculture into our agricultural sector, as in people who can access information, modern tools and techniques for abundant job production as it is done in advanced countries.
READ ALSO: How FG can save $20bn annually through agricultural revolution
Finally, with my years of active engineering practice, all I can see is that tackling the problems of unemployment and poverty may be difficult unless there is a paradigm shift in our job creation approach from having more traditional and conditional entrepreneurs to turning our graduates into innovative entrepreneurs.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial policy of NAIJ.com.
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