Solving youth unemployment correlation in the post-COVID-19 era: Reasoning with DR UCHE OGAH

By Great Imo Jonathan

Recently I thought about what will be the aftermath of COVID-19 on our youths, especially with regards to the rising unemployment in the world. Then I remembered a wonderful discussion I had with Dr. Uche Ogah (now Minister Of State, Mines And Steel Development) two years ago, on how we can solve this endemic problem in Abia State. Dr. Uche Ogah aside from being a politician is a notable entrepreneur with a unique ability to build businesses and he has been an employer of labour with a particular focus on the youth population. Being an entrepreneur who has employed thousands of youths over the years, his articulate ideas on how we can tackle the problem of youth unemployment were quite unique and I think they will be beneficial in the post-COVID-19 era. With over 12 industries and 16 subsidiaries to his credit, I definitely find his ideas important because he has a practical knowledge beyond theories.

It is indeed worrisome to know that over 50 percent of our youths in the PRE-COVID-19 era were unemployed. Yet there are many challenges facing our nation, especially such that it requires the creative ingenuity of our youths.

Hence the strategic points raised by Dr. Uche Ogah in our discussion are relevant going forward.

Dr. Uche Ogah thinks, there is a correlation between the hunger in the land and the large population of our unemployed youths. There is a correlation between housing deficits across the country and these millions of unemployed numbers.

There is a correlation between our youth unemployment and thousands of cortege hospitals needed in rural communities; rural roads needed to be built; pharmacies needed in communities; street lights that needs to be mounted on every street and villages; streets that need to be swept daily; mass transit buses and modern taxis needed in our cities; modern rail lines that are supposed to crisscross the country; doctors and nurses that are supposed to man our hospitals; modern abattoirs needed in every local government; secondary and tertiary health facilities needed in every senatorial district and geopolitical zones, states and local government.

That indeed there is a correlation between our youth unemployment and huge importation of goods; refineries needed in every state of Nigeria; independent power projects that are supposed to be owned by states and local governments; alternative energy companies that are supposed to be springing up everywhere; over 10 million hectares of land needed to be cultivated annually; food processing factories that are supposed to dot communities; phone factories that are supposed to produce over 300 million phones that are supplied to African markets every year by the Chinese; electronic factories that are supposed to produce our television sets, radio sets, refrigerators and other appliances; and the many other needs of Africa.

Dr. Uche Ogah believes that finding the correlation between these needs and the numbers of unemployed youths is key. So at the heart of solving youth unemployment is finding the correlation.

Dr. Uche Ogah sees that correlation as “quality education and training”.

And for me Great Imo Jonathan, I feel bad that Nigeria and Africa have not made education a priority. And where there are semblances of education, they don’t really relate with the basic needs of the nation and skills required. I mean our education is not need based, we are simply pursuing certificates to bolster egos and to seek employment. Whereas the development of our creative abilities to be able to make meaningful contributions to our nation’s development should have been the focus.

As Kelechi Deca once said “our biggest undoing is the education system that was messed up. Anything that has a negative impact on education reverberates across every sector. Until we get it right with education, forget quality assurance in public service”

Americans, Europeans and the Chinese cannot continue to handle our construction, fabricate our farm tools, produce our appliances and develop our software whilst we claim that we don’t have jobs for our youths.

Hence, there is the imperative of redefining our education system.

As Dr. Uche Ogah said to me prior to his going in for the governorship election in Abia State, “we must give our youths the kind of education that makes them fit for engagement in the areas we have challenges and that will make them gainfully employed. That is the only means of solving the correlation”.

Again for Great Imo Jonathan, I think that we should be tired of talking about the availability and nonavailability of money for meeting our eduction need. That is lazy. It is my belief that we have all it takes to solve this problem in the now. We can solve this correlation; defining the education recipe that meets the needs of the country and by putting our money where our mouth is.

We should never expect to make appreciable progress with the abysmal budgetary allocations we make for education annually. Whilst we budget a huge amount of monies annually for less than 500 people in Nigeria’s National Assembly our youths are left unattended to. With the kind of recurring expenditures we see every year in our country, why should our education system that is meant to build our youths into productive and responsible citizens be so neglected?

Even in this year of COVID-19, the budgetary provision I am seeing cannot be up to 10 percent. I mean the available investment to prepare our youths for the future that will be confronting them in this era of global pandemic and competition should be of concern to all of us.

But I need to inform all of us that whilst we are still playing with the education of our youths, neighbouring countries like Ghana and Rwanda are putting as much as 25 percent of their country’s annual budget into education to prepare their youth for the challenges ahead. That is shameful for our nation.

As experiences in other climes have shown, money is not the problem. Because money is a virtual reality. It is a by-product that results from solving problems. Meaning that our leaders must have an understanding of money matrix as it relates to creating value.

Basically, as Dr. Uche Ogah told me two years ago, what he wanted to do in Abia state was to come up with a Marshall Plan (MP) that will redefine education in the state. I think we can do that as a country also. That is the pedestal he believed can solve this correlation. And that is the pedestal I think can give our youths the kind of education that is targeted at solving our problems.

We need to come together and develop educational recipes that will be focused on giving our youths quality trainings that empowers them to solve our needs and earn value. As we are battling to stave off COVID-19, we must begin to think and work out new strategies that will make our post-pandemic education solution based.

Our youths are becoming more impatient by the day as they become more disillusioned in a world where they have no required skills to compete in the global economy or to even hold a bigger stake in our domestic economy. We need to do something quickly to get them engaged and to use them to solve our problems.

If we need more power; if we want our public buildings and facilities to be well maintained; if our schools require more trained teachers or more furniture; if public transportation is deserving of more infrastructure, equipment and personnel; whatever inadequacy you can think of, it can only mean that we are in dire need of rightly educated youths who can take on these challenges. Indeed, the more these gaps that remain in our development efforts, the more relevant our youths must be as solution providers. Our educational institutions must be made to churn out the best qualities of youths there can be to face these challenges. And that will help Nigeria solve “youth unemployment”, especially in the post-COVID-19 era.

The future of Nigeria belongs to its teeming youth population, preparing them for that future is as much an important task as ensuring that the youth themselves appreciate very early the enormous historic burden that awaits them; the burden of leadership and service which ironically is the truest path to progress.

Youths are the future health, strength and wealth of any nation. As repositories of the vision of our country’s progress and growth, we must give them the kind of education that empowers them to solve our needs and benefit from their labour. We must engage them in activities and get them to participate in events that will contribute to the development of Nigeria in the post-COVID-19 economy and shape their destiny.

According to Dr. Uche Ogah, “Only Quality Education Can Solve The Correlation”. There is no better alternative.

Great Imo Jonathan