BEFORE YOU GRADUATE-WHAT AN UNDERGRADUATE MUST KNOW TO ESCAPE UNEMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC LACK

BEFORE YOU GRADUATE-WHAT AN UNDERGRADUATE MUST KNOW TO ESCAPE UNEMPLOYMENT AND ECONOMIC LACK

CHAPTER ONE

TIMES ARE CHANGING

Point 1:

The problem of unemployment in Nigeria

The problem of unemployment in Nigeria is fast spreading like a virus, it is replicating so fast, the problem is growing more than ten times faster than the government can solve it. This problem is fuelled by the very fast growing population increase in Nigeria.

            Year in year out, the tertiary institutions which include colleges of Education, Polytechnic, Universities and other tertiary institutions both private and public poor out at least five hundred thousand graduating students into the streets of despair with little or no jobs. The government of the day seem to have no answers to this increasing problem.

          Today, at least five out of every ten Nigerian graduates have no job. And these five that have the jobs face the constant tension and risk of losing the jobs. Today, most employed Nigerian graduates are employed in the dying Nigerian public institutions. From Nigerian Railway corporation to Nigeria telecommunication and others, and the death continues. Currently, over 70% of Nigerian youths are unemployed. Nigeria have little or no industries. The jobs offered by the few companies available are no match for catastrophic population level of the unemployed and jobless. It is that bad!

            Today in Nigeria, students gladly gain admission and pass through the university without having a ground idea of the exponential increase by the day of joblessness and unemployment among Nigerian graduates. They go through school burn midnight candles, do several night reading, spend long hours in lecture halls, go hungry on many occasions, some squat for many years with other students for accommodation, face several other challenges, all with the hope to get the golden key to wealth and riches’’ through a very good job with fat monthly pay cheques and increasing job care and welfare benefits. As they spend more time passing through these tough times in the school, their balloons of hopes keep growing bigger and bigger. The lecturers, parents, aunties, uncles, sponsors and well-wishers all help to keep pumping the air of hopes into these balloons to keep them bigger and afloat. During these years, there is the popular cliché which goes like this-“focus on your lectures and books every other factor is a distraction”.

            Even as I write now in 2014, statistics have it that about 1.6 Million students wrote the universal Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). At least one million of these students will gain admission into universities, polytechnics, colleges of Education and other private and public tertiary institutions in Nigeria. These students gain admission and celebrate their matriculation into these institutions. In the end of their academic programs in these institutions, their sponsors and well-wishers join them to celebrate on their day of convocation. On that memorable day of convocation they are presented with the much expected certificate. And suddenly they are for the first time after many years within the walls of the institution released into the streets to discover with shock that about 20 million graduates are just like them with good grades on the streets searching for jobs for many years.

            Another big problem to the side of this discussion is that more than 70% Nigerian undergraduates today do not have the fundamental and convinced understanding of the state of unemployment in Nigeria. Probably, the reason for this is so that they can focus on their studies, focus, get the good grades and then come out to join the queue. The inability of both the Nigerian government and the Nigerian society to educate undergraduates on the high level of joblessness in Nigeria creates another problem that fuels the existing crisis of unemployment, and that problem is ignorance.

In addition to this problem of ignorance is the poor levels of financial education and the drive for entrepreneurism.

In the country. The government at all levels keep preaching of entrepreneurism but do little or nothing about it. For instance, government would rather spend millions of dollars on NYSC rather than train graduates on the entrepreneurship and financial education and provide soft loans without collateral as a start-up capital. Nigerian government would rather pay N19, 000 minimum wage to NYSC members and convert most of t hem part-time primary and secondary school teachers rather than pass them through technical skills and real human capital development programs, plus give them start-up capital for business start-ups, knowing fully that they-the government have little or no jobs to offer the graduating corp members. They would only give the NYSC members days or few weeks of theoretical lectures with little or no practical side just like the normal boring classroom lectures. This is too bad!

            Albert Einstein one of the greatest scientists and philosophers of the twentieth century said that one way to define insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. He also said that you do not solve a problem using the same method you used in creating the problem. For decades now, there have been this recycling lie that University Certificate or Tertiary Certificate is the golden key to open the doors that will solve financial problems. And this have led to an exploding number of those who want to go to school (Tertiary Institutions). The problem is that the government and the society, starting from nuclear and extended families have succeeded in sustaining this lie for a lone time. They use the few illustrations of those who graduate and get big jobs to inspire others to shut down their creativity for alternatives to financial prosperity and focus on one thing only, the paper, and certificate. Today, as we now have millions of jobless graduates, the lie is being exposed and has nowhere to hide.

            Financial education that is very much lacking in the Nigerian system which is a fundamental cause of increasing the poverty in the system do not just have to do with monthly pay cheques but with understanding the nature of money and how it works and how to create it.

Point 2:

This book is not the usual one

This book is not the usual get rich quick book. This book is a mentor and eye opener to serve as a guiding tool to help you jump out of the crowd and make a bold step to gaining financial freedom for years in Nigeria.

            If you are an undergraduate reading this book, then know one thing, this book could be an answered prayer for your future. If you have already graduated, this book could help you avoid wrong decisions and steps, and if you are yet to gain admission into any tertiary institution, you need this book as a road map also.

            I tell you, one very important question that a graduate or yet-to-be graduate must answer is this, ‘’WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?’’ it is wise for an undergraduate or graduate to answer this question practically before graduating day, and after graduation. Financial freedom is a good purpose worth working towards.

Point 3:

Employees teaching people to become entrepreneurs

The federal government of Nigeria have seen the increasing problem and effects of unemployment and introduced entrepreneurship studies as a compulsory course in all tertiary institutions. The federal Governments step of introducing entrepreneurship studies in all Nigeria tertiary institutions shows its consciousness of the potential problems of unemployment. But this idea of teaching entrepreneurship studies in tertiary institutions does not seem to be a potent solution.

            Employing lectures most of whom have no practical clue and experience of entrepreneurship is like employing an active military general who has grown and lived in the barracks for most of his years to lecture people on how to become civilians.

            These entrepreneurship teaching lectures in Nigeria tertiary institutions will only write theories of entrepreneurship on the board for students to copy, take to their lodges or hostels, read and prepare for entrepreneurship examinations. Those who fail the course will either rewrite the course or ‘’sort it’’, and the journey continues.

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