Rising Youth Unemployment and The Socio-Economic Realities in Nigeria: The Akwa Ibom State Experience (Published)
This paper was undertaken to establish the interplay between youth unemployment and resultant negative socio-economic realities in Nigeria as evident in Akwa Ibom State. Nigeria’s population and that of Akwa Ibom State is currently (July, 2022) estimated at about 206 and 7 million respectively with a progressive average growth rate of 3.5 percent per annum. Out of this number, while more than 35 percent at the national level, over 52 percent of the youth in Akwa Ibom State are unemployed. This situation, as the paper observed, is occasioned by crucial factors ranging from the poor state of the economy and educational standard, poor attitude to agriculture, poor enabling and secured environment, scarcity of data on informal employment and entrepreneurship, poor economic growth rate and wrong impression about technical and vocational education. Furthermore, the paper noted that the prevailing unemployment among youth in Akwa Ibom State has engendered high rate of social vices such as prostitution, armed robbery, oil bunkering, internet fraud, drug trafficking and addiction, rape, kidnapping, political thuggery, assassination and other acts of criminalities. For the way forward, the paper proffered, among others, that the Akwa Ibom State government should redesigned the education sector to become technology-based in order to enhance skill acquisition for self-employment as well as encourage the youth to embrace agriculture as a profitable business venture. Moreover, honest effort should be made towards revitalizing the moribund and ailing industries in the state.
Victor E. Ita and John E. Bassey (2022) Rising Youth Unemployment and The Socio-Economic Realities in Nigeria: The Akwa Ibom State Experience, International Journal of Development and Economic Sustainability, Vol.10, No.4, pp.1-14
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Self-employment, Unemployment, Youth, economic growth, social vices
Entrepreneurship Development and Youth Employment in Nigeria: Perspectives on Selected Entrepreneurship Schemes (Published)
The study examined the relationship between entrepreneurship development and youth employment in Nigeria. It focused on two empowerment schemes: Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YEDP) and Youth Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture in Nigeria (YISA). The nation’s unemployment record, especially among youth, is alarming. A National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report in 2018 shows that, out of the 85million labour force in Nigeria, 34million are unemployed and underemployed youths, with 25million largely uneducated. The YEDP and YISA schemes were designed to train and make youths entrepreneurs that would be self-employed and also employ others. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to show that in spite of the conscious and frantic efforts by government and non-governmental organizations through the framework of YEDP and YISA to address the unemployment challenge in the country not so much has been achieved. The study revealed that the programmes have created a number of entrepreneurs and employment for young people across the country. Nonetheless, these efforts have not significantly yielded the desired outcomes of massive job creation for the youths and ensuring national food security. To achieve desired results, using the agricultural value chain, there is need to adopt scientific knowledge based agricultural production. Hence the paper concluded that for Nigeria to address the twin challenges of massive unemployment and national food insecurity agricultural activities should be scientific and greatly modernized. The study recommended, among other things, that integrated farming approach, involving large variety of activities per hectare should be adopted and there should be substantial investment in R&D to generate new ideas and high yielding seeds for the new entrepreneur-farmers.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Food Security, Uneducated., Unemployment, Value Chain, Youths
Entrepreneurship Development and Youth Employment in Nigeria: Perspectives on Selected Entrepreneurship Schemes (Published)
The study examined the relationship between entrepreneurship development and youth employment in Nigeria. It focused on two empowerment schemes: Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme (YEDP) and Youth Initiative for Sustainable Agriculture in Nigeria (YISA). The nation’s unemployment record, especially among youth, is alarming. A National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report in 2018 shows that, out of the 85million labour force in Nigeria, 34million are unemployed and underemployed youths, with 25million largely uneducated. The YEDP and YISA schemes were designed to train and make youths entrepreneurs that would be self-employed and also employ others. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to show that in spite of the conscious and frantic efforts by government and non-governmental organizations through the framework of YEDP and YISA to address the unemployment challenge in the country not so much has been achieved. The study revealed that the programmes have created a number of entrepreneurs and employment for young people across the country. Nonetheless, these efforts have not significantly yielded the desired outcomes of massive job creation for the youths and ensuring national food security. To achieve desired results, using the agricultural value chain, there is need to adopt scientific knowledge based agricultural production. Hence the paper concluded that for Nigeria to address the twin challenges of massive unemployment and national food insecurity agricultural activities should be scientific and greatly modernized. The study recommended, among other things, that integrated farming approach, involving large variety of activities per hectare should be adopted and there should be substantial investment in R&D to generate new ideas and high yielding seeds for the new entrepreneur-farmers.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Food Security, Uneducated., Unemployment, Value Chain, Youths
Inequality, Poverty among Nigeria Women and Youth and the Challenges of Inclusive Growth in Post 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) (Published)
By all standards, economic growth is expected to reduce poverty, rather poverty in Nigeria has remained high as 112m people representing 67 percent of the population are in abject poverty while GDP rates fell to 7.68 per cent in 2011 from 8.60 in 2010. Income inequality was 0.3594(2010) and -25.9 in 2011(BOS,2012). If Millennium Development Goals (MDG) could affect poverty level in India and China, why has Nigeria’s poverty level remained high? The study hence, examined the challenges of inequality and poverty reduction among Nigerian women and youth with focus on inclusive growth in post 2015 MDG. Content analysis of secondary literature was undertaken to address the problem of the study. Findings indicated that poverty in Nigeria is not affected due to misdirection of programmes from rural to urban areas, inadequate funding, lack of control, transparency and accountability and inadequate coverage of the poor. The study suggested that entrepreneurial training programmes and capability creation, combined with an all inclusive effort aimed at providing education and health facility, integrated growth, income distribution, and financing land ownership are highly required. Conclusively, poverty in Nigeria can be substantively reduced if an all inclusive approach is adopted covering entrepreneurial training backed with monitoring and accommodation of large coverage of the poor in the programme in post 2015 MDG plans.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Inclusive Growth, Inequality, Poverty
Curbing Graduate Unemployment in Nigeria: Case of Cross River State. (Review Completed - Accepted)
The plum arising from Nigeria’s large oil-cash receipts has informed a neglect of Agriculture, Skill/Innovation and Entrepreneurship which would evolve an industrial state with the capacity to absorb her teeming youth population. Worse still, the country’s education system is tailored along lines that produce graduates lacking requisite mental infrastructure and experience and therefore making them misfits in the economy. The paper explores ways of curbing Nigeria’s unemployment dilemma, emphasizing the educationist point of view; we specifically investigated the proximate causes of graduate unemployment in Nigeria using Cross River State as our case study. Random sampling procedures are adopted to survey six Local Government Areas across the three senatorial districts in the state. Results reveal an inverse relationship between skill acquisition/innovation, entrepreneurship, economic diversification and unemployment. It is recommended that public policy should emphasize technical/vocational education leading to self-reliance and self-employment, innovation and entrepreneurship, while effort should be made to reduce corruption and institutional bottlenecks at all levels of government.
Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Self-reliance, Technical Education, Unemployment