Policy advice for after 2023: Youth unemployment and job creation

Written by Tunji Olaopa

In this piece, the focus of my policy advice will be on the crucial link between education, unemployment and job creation as fundamental elements in the transformation of Nigeria’s economic growth and development. And this is critical because of Nigeria’s low employment intensity and the side effects on the non-inclusive growth of the national economy. Over the years, so much analytical ink has been spilled over the largely uneven, unbalanced and socially non-inclusive growth trends of the Nigerian economy, which essentially stem from the economy’s unimaginative monocultural reliance on oil. This is exacerbated by a number of entrenched structural weaknesses that have been at the heart of national development policy performance over the years.

I think first of all of the crippling national infrastructure deficit now estimated at $100 million a year and requiring $80 billion in financial commitments over the next decade. Second, there is also the cost and ease of doing business. In the World Bank 2022 ranking, Nigeria currently ranks 131 out of 190 countries. This simply means that the regulations for doing business in Nigeria are not friendly enough to stimulate the economy. Nigeria’s heavy dependence on the oil and gas sector is also a drag because it is not a labour-intensive sector in terms of the production process and capital formation dynamics.

All this has serious implications for the Nigerian economy’s chances of achieving robust diversification through a multifaceted and strategic policy rethinking of its development components. The resolution of this problem is inherently linked to the governance requirements of a restructured Nigerian federation that has the capacity to utilize the non-oil resources of its federated units on the basis of comparative advantage. It is easy for the reader to immediately discern how such a crucial step, namely the unbundling of the agricultural sector, can easily alleviate the ongoing unemployment tension. This policy challenge has been consistently critical to the social inequality that has led to the rampant depletion of human capital, made up mostly of young Nigerians who cannot be blamed for choosing the Japanese option of favoring their life prospects rather than being undermined by a state that is not. reconsider its options.

What is also immediately certain is the important role that education and training will play in halting the drift in human capital and workforce dynamics in Nigeria. This is because the challenge of unemployment is complicated by (un)employability due to different levels of skills shortages and mismatch. And this not only demonstrates the shortcomings of the education system skewing in favor of formal certification, but also points to the urgent need for an education reform as a critical part of the larger development equation to drive Nigeria’s progress. On the other hand, and very unfortunate, not only is the informal education sector disjointed, the policy innovation that should creatively reconnect it as a structural foundation for productivity is scarce and far between. And while successive governments have invested heavily in their investments in technical and vocational education and training (TVET), this has also come at the cost of appropriately structural reprofiling of traditional apprenticeship and non-formal training models as equally fundamental elements in educational provision that drive productivity. and generate human capital to jump-start Nigeria’s development. And this is not to say that even TVET itself is well-founded, as there is still a serious gap between the opportunities available and the skills and competences that education has made possible.

We are then sensitized to the creative policy direction the new government should pursue – an urgent and comprehensive re-articulation of the education sector in ways that (a) strengthen the formal education and certification process to fit the industrialization goals of the Nigerian state; (b) connecting the formal and informal education sectors on a continuum of learning and training; and (c) using traditional apprenticeship, informal and vocational training and formal certification in a reprofiled human capital development policy. Such a proactive policy strategy will surely be an important addition to the six-level Nigerian National Vocational Certification Framework (NVQF), which links education and training systems in terms of industry and competency-based qualifications. This has the advantage of enabling strategic collaboration between higher education and industrial dynamics in Nigeria; in terms of connecting the dots between theoretical and practical redeployment to rejuvenate the workplace for national development. The Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) trajectory has also come to a regrettable halt due to the total lack of synergy between students starting theoretical learning and the demands of the workplace.

So while the new government urgently needs to start mapping out the policy framework for a proactive education reform that will link learning and training with human capital development, there is also, at another fundamental level, the critical need for land reform as part of the development reflection . Here, land reform refers to using land and agriculture as development complements for the creation of new jobs and youth employment. This calls for the meeting of administrative and constitutional reforms to facilitate land reform as a legitimate means of pooling and expanding the means of production Nigeria needs to achieve economic growth. The focus of this governance and constitutional amendment is the repeal of the Land Use Act of 1978. This has direct relevance to freeing up land use in a way that aggregates it for economic development. The law contradicts all critical land use standards for economic growth anywhere in the world. And its logic is only due to the skewed unitary federalism that stifles development initiatives. While land is supposed to be owned by local communities in terms of customary and legal dynamics, Nigeria’s deviant federalism gives all land to the Nigerian government. And this becomes a direct constraint on the socio-economic dynamics of national development.

Not only does it undermine the principle of subsidiarity that forms the basis as the context for a people-centered development initiative, it also fundamentally links land ownership to the difficult and grueling environment of doing business in Nigeria. Unfortunately, when farmers – the fulcrum of any agricultural revival – fail to retain titles to the lands they farm, agricultural unbundling will be affected in a way that prevents them from being linked to the governance reform to activate development. More importantly, as Hernando de Soto argues, most Third World countries hold land and other critical resources for development in “deficient forms.”

In other words, “homes built on land whose titles are not adequately secured, unincorporated corporations with undefined liability, industries located where financiers and investors cannot see them.” The problem of this observation for farmers and agricultural investors in Nigeria, therefore, is that land that is not properly documented cannot be capitalized for investment and national development.

We then return to the managerial challenge of the ease of doing business in Nigeria, which links land tenure with the exploration and regularization of land use for investment purposes.

Nigeria needs a land development policy, with an institutional framework, that frees up land for investment and development purposes. But in the long run, land reform must be insinuated into a broader and more comprehensive reform of local government/administration that will align with the larger objective of restructuring Nigerian federalism and all its weaknesses. Right now, we have a confluence of fundamentals of reform: democratic governance, national development, local governance, federalism, and education. And they are all woven into a policy framework that the next government must be willing and politically courageous to hold together. Federalism speaks to a local government/governance imperative that encourages grassroots development based on social capital and the principle of subsidiarity. If development is truly seen as a people’s business, its dynamics must come from below, and within a national and local governance context that unbundles the growth opportunities that democratic governance could emanate. This includes traditional and informal apprenticeship and non-formal vocational training that could complement formal education training for harnessing Nigeria’s human capital for development.

The Igbo apprenticeship system is a good example of this. This unique example shows how a local innovation can serve as a hub for development policy. It is an educational initiative that brings a solid entrepreneurial spirit into the development equation. This provides scope to undermine the vicious circle of unemployment, while also diverting attention from the government as the sole provider of everything. And this is just one of many examples of how government can leverage the social capital and subsidiarity represented in the local government scheme already completely excised from the federal dynamics and framework of debilitating centralization.

The next government already has a lot on its plate. And what needs to be done must be prompted by the anguish of Nigerians who have suffered too much simply because they were born in a country that lacks development leadership. The flashpoint of urgent policy intelligence and direction has already been clearly outlined in painful reliefs in the lives of Nigerians. Unemployment is not something that can be subjected to bad politics that kill Nigerians. This is the policy that previous governments have played. The next government cannot afford to do the same.

• prof. Tunji Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary and Professor, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos via tolaopa2003@gmail.com.

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