On March 19, 2014, the
then opposition All Progressive Congress, APC, criticized the unemployment
situation under then President Jonathan and accused him of not doing anything
concrete to help Nigerian youths get employed. The APC in a statement said the
Jonathan administration ‘has no social security or any form of safety net for
the vulnerable army of the unemployed.’
This was despite the fact that that administration
had set up the Youth With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWIN) scheme to assist
Nigerian youths who had good business ideas with training and funding so they
could start a business instead of depending on either government or the private
sector for a job. Around Nigeria, approximately 4,000 Nigerian youths got
business training from the Lagos Business School and received grants of between
2 million and 10 million Naira (at that time worth between $12,000 to $50,000)
to start their own businesses.
This is aside the 41,000 graduates who benefited
from the Graduate Internship Scheme of that administration which placed
Nigerian graduates with employers who could not afford to pay them so the
youths could get experience while the government paid them. The Jonathan
administration also set up two ICT Incubation Centers, one
in Lagos and the other in Calabar to enhance and grow the ideas and innovations
of Nigerian youths into viable globally recognized businesses. It is worthy of
note that when Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg visited Nigeria, the first
place he chose to visit was the Co-Creation Hub (CCHUB) a brainchild of
the Jonathan administration.
So, having criticized a government that did so
much to spur youth innovation and employment, one would have thought that the
APC would do better than the previous Peoples Democratic Party government of
President Goodluck Jonathan. So, you can then imagine my shock when it was
revealed that the APC government planned to recruit Nigerian university
graduates as bus conductors! Really? Bus conductors? And these are the
people that tore the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan to shreds
with criticism? How sad! I have one question for the APC. If graduates are to
be conductors, then who will drive the buses? PhD and Masters holders? But it
is really ridiculous! President Goodluck Jonathan gave graduates between ₦2m to
₦12 million each to start businesses and the APC ridiculed him and called him
clueless.
Today, the clue-full APC is giving graduates ₦50k to be conductors.
Jonathan saw youths as businessmen which is why he empowered them to start
businesses, but today the APC see youths as conductors. All I can say is
welcome to the new Nigeria! But on second thoughts, it all makes perfect sense
when you think about it. I now understand why the APC is turning our graduates
to conductors. APC promised change and suddenly realized that it is conductors
who collect change! So while the children of APC big wigs get plum jobs and
juicy contracts, your children are ‘blessed’ with the opportunity to collect
change! As far as they are concerned, the APC has fulfilled their campaign
promises!
Someone told me that the APC has not created jobs and has even lost
the jobs created by the Jonathan government and cited the report by the
Nigerian Bureau of Statistics which revealed that 4.58 million Nigerians have
lost their jobs under President Buhari.
However, I disagreed with that person
and said the APC has created jobs. When the person asked me what jobs my
response was as follows – Examples of jobs APC has created for graduates: (a)
Bus Conductors (b) Masquerade Dressers (c) Speech Plagiarizers and (d) which is
specially for women; It is called Special Assistant on ‘Other Room’ and Kitchen
Duties! It is so sad that in less than two years we have gone from Graduate
Internship Scheme to Graduate Bus Conductor Scheme. Alas, alas!
Omokri is the
founder of the Mind of Christ Christian Center in California, author of
Shunpiking: No Shortcuts to God and Why Jesus Wept and the host of
Transformation with Reno Omokri
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