Youths Laud Sanusi’s Call For Unemployment Compensation Policy

·      Analysts, NBS Differ On Figures

B y Chukwudi OHIRI

CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi has called for the introduction of social security measures as a means to fight the growing spate of crime and insecurity in the country.

 

Weeks after the Central Bank of Nigeria’s helmsman, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi stirred the hornet’s nest in Umuahia, Abia State when he in his usual vociferous manner called on the Federal Government to set up an unemployment compensation policy to assist the country’s teeming unemployed youths and make them shun crimes and other deviant lifestyles, youths in Aba have applauded the call, challenging the authorities to implement the policy as a matter of urgency.

Speaking in Umuahia, Abia State as a guest lecturer at the first Abia State Youths Empowerment Summit on the topic; “Youth empowerment as a panacea for insecurity”, Sanusi among other issues called on the government to create a national unemployment policy where unemployed youths would be entitled to some kind of stipends periodically to keep them from the temptation of jumping into crimes and criminality at the least opportunity. To ensure the effectiveness of this policy, Sanusi also suggested the creation and maintenance of biometric and forensic data base for all Nigerians, employed and unemployed to avoid loopholes and for proper administration. “In the South-South and South East, the act of kidnapping, youth restiveness and other violence have become rampant. Specifically, the spate of kidnapping across the country, the incessant wave of crime and armed robbery point to the fact that insecurity is a big challenge to development in Nigeria. “Related to the above is the challenge of poverty level. Governments at all levels are unable to address this because there is no realistic social security programme in Nigeria to meet the people’s basic needs. This often provides the basis for desperation and criminally minded activities,” Sanusi said.

The youth leader and spokesperson for the group, Mr. Boniface Kamalu while commending the recommendations of the CBN czar stressed that “for as long as it does not cost the government at both federal and state levels any material (financial) loss in keeping the youths unemployed, it will continue to pay lip service to the issue of unemployment.” Going further, Kamalu said: “In advanced countries, unemployed persons just as retired or handicapped persons are statutorily being provided for in the annual budget and the lesser the number, the more the government saves from what it ordinarily would have expended on this class of people and more income tax generation. This is why unemployment issue is given top priority during electioneering campaign and national debate and any government that is unable to manage the growth rate of unemployed persons risks losing the general election”

In Nigeria, unemployment matters have remained very topical during and after electioneering campaigns, yet little or nothing is done to shrink the percentage. In fact, provision of employment has now turned to a slogan by successive administrations at federal and state levels with nothing to show for it in the long run.

Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics released the official statistics of unemployment rate putting it at a ‘controversial’ 23.9% between 1999 and 2011. The report highlighted that between the periods under review, Nigeria’s unemployment rate dropped from about 8.7 per cent the 23.9 per cent in 2011. This data more than anything else revealed that between 1999 when the 4^th republic commenced with a lot of sloganeering on the issue of unemployment, not much improvement has been recorded to justify all the rhetoric about job creation by successive administrations till date.

But the Statistician-General, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr. Yemi Kale argued that it is an unfair assessment to say that there has been no improvements at all in the unemployment rate in the country saying: “it is wrong to say that things are not improving. Things are improving, jobs have been created, but the challenge is how can we increase the number of these jobs to balance out?"

 Addressing journalists in Abuja during a stakeholders' consultative forum on the production and management of Ministries, Departments and Agencies’ statistics, the NBS boss also argued that while it could be admitted that economic growth had not brought about the expected impact, it was wrong to say that no impact has been felt at all. He stressed that jobs were being created in the economy. According to Kale, “it is impacting on the lives of Nigerians but maybe not as much or widespread as you would expect. You can't expect a Shoprite to come and hire 2,000 people in one location in Lagos and you say it doesn't impact on the lives of people…When you hear them expanding to other states, that is clearly a sign that they are making money and expanding their businesses. When they are expanding, they hire more people; so you can't say it's not impacting. It is impacting and jobs are being created in this economy. But the problem with jobs is that if you are generating jobs and more people are entering the job market than you can generate, you might have a problem.”

Although official records put the unemployment rate at 23.9%, statisticians and analyst argue that the figure is fraught with deceit. For instance, prior to the release of the figure by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS (apparently in response to a publication in one of the national dailies), the federal government had admitted that there were 39 million jobless and idle citizens of productive age. This figure, if verified cannot represent a 23.9% unemployment rate. In March 2009, the World Bank published a document that Nigeria had about 40 million jobless citizens. The same government did not refute this. As a matter of fact, it actually admitted that about 40 million employable persons were jobless in Nigeria through the Labour Ministry and it was well publicized..

 The question now is, has there been any remarkable improvement between that period and now to warrant a decline given that so many people lost their jobs in the ongoing privatization exercise as well as banking reforms? Although a few companies sprang up recently to add a boost to the unemployment saga, a good number of companies closed shops in Nigeria relocating to Ghana and other neighbouring countries citing high cost of production and more recently, insecurity as reasons. It is probably on these premises that analysts argue that the official figure cannot be anything but half truth.

To expatiate, they argue that based on the admittance to the World Bank figures of 2009 by the FG and the fact that between 2009 and 2011, the rate dropped to 23.9%, going by the NBS data, it therefore implies simultaneously that the 5% percent drop adopted in the World Bank’s figure within the period means the actual unemployment rate would be about 32.77% amounting to some 42 million unemployed persons in raw figure as at 2011, analysts insist.

Ironically, the president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Peter Esele while fielding questions from journalists during the last Workers’ Day celebration shifted the blame (to a considerable extent) away from the government. He insisted that although government remains the largest employer in the country and also has the capacity to create jobs, it can never create enough. “There is no government all over the world that creates enough jobs for the citizens. But what the government ensures and has a duty to, is to create the right environment for the rest of the citizens and the economy operators to create jobs for others and themselves,” he said.

On why the government has a share in the blame game, Esele said: “I insist that the reason many Nigerians can’t get jobs is because they have no power supply to sustain such job because before they could start any small business, they must incur so much cost to generate power and at last they are weighed down. “The next constraint is the greed of the governments that invent all manner of taxes against the few companies that manage to survive. From the local government to the federal government, the entrepreneur in Nigeria is a victim of multiple taxation and that does not in any way encourage growth or the provision of jobs for the citizens. So any effort of sloganeering by the government on how it plans to solve the unemployment problem without first taking care of these factors that would enable the individuals generate jobs for themselves must remain a failure. It does not matter how many times it sings the song of job creation or invention of platform to rehabilitate the jobless graduates. There is no time they can provide enough, so let them allow the conditions that would make individual efforts at self employment thrive.”

The call by Sanusi for ‘Unemployment Compensation Policy’ may have come pursuant to the insecurity question presently bedeviling the country, but it could not have come at a better time. The earlier the authorities hearken to this call, the better for the overall growth, peace and tranquility in the polity.