BY OLUTAYO C. ADESINA
There is a way in which the conditions of joblessness and unemployment leave you confused, desolate and hopeless. Do we need to talk about the loneliness, frustration or the pains of staying at home? What about the indignity of moving around places and offices that were actually not looking for your services? Top on the list also are the daily pressure, questions, and expectations from family, friends, colleagues and peers. Can you also contemplate the sorrows of having to explain to cynical semi-literate potential employers why you read a particular course and not another? More insidious is the automatic maiguard you became for everyone in the neighbourhood when they go to work or to their places of business. You were the person to watch out for the shoemaker and the gari seller when they come around. You become everyone’s ‘house-boy’ or ‘house-girl’ when they leave money with you to buy something or the other for them from itinerant traders and hawkers. What a life!
Yet, the clock of your age kept on ticking without knowing when you would arrive at the Promised Land! Even then, the unemployed were not the only casualties. The worried parents also suffered in silence. They pined away as you snapped at everyone and it appeared you were angry with the world. They were even afraid to send you on errands or talk to you about marriage. They even worried about your mental health as you moved around the house like a ghost. The problems are complex. Thus, beyond the spurious and useless statistics and development indicators being pushed out by our governments everyday, has anyone actually sat down to critically assess and make known to all and sundry, the psychological, social, political, and even ideological costs of unemployment in recent times? In other words, have we talked to everyone concerned about the fallacy of data? Since economic data and indicators are apt to overlook the textures and trends of peoples’ lives, we have to analyse, and interrogate the policies, plans and action (or inaction) that have translated to lived and shared experiences from a qualitative perspective. Those of us who can, should blow the alarm on what dangers acute unemployment pose for the health and vitality of this nation and its people.
We, the ancestors of the present set of jobless youths should know, appreciate, and are able to give an insight into what went on in the past. We should also contribute our quotas to finding ways out of the logjam. Need I tell anyone who had been there before, that joblessness was, and is, a very terrifying experience? But despite all these, a great decision anyone can make is never to give up trusting God for a change and for better days ahead. That is the surest way to maintain your sanity and faith in humanity.
The issue of unemployment is symptomatic of a wider malaise. That should be made obvious to everyone. This is the outcome of a badly-administered resource rich country like Nigeria that has unfortunately neglected to evolve appropriate polices for the economic and political management of the country. The damaging effects of these are well covered in historical, political and economics literatures. But who in government or society reads them? Oil revenues in Nigeria had not been known to be avenues for sound economic management but for corruption and profligacy. It has also given rise to an eclectic mix of rogues and opportunists who were all motivated by self-aggrandisementsand personal advancement.
The Machiavellian brilliance of our ruling elite is legendary. Nigerian officials, from the Presidents/Heads of State downwards became instrumental in creating a political environment where indiscipline and corruption thrived. Since independence from Britain in 1960, the cyclical relationship between public offices and private interest had created the abuse of public positions of trust for private gains. Patrimonialism then became a Directive Principle of State Policy. Being politically connected was symbiotic to private capital accumulation. Laid down structures and principles were abused or by-passed. Nigeria became a country of ‘anything goes.’ The country has since then created layers of exclusion, and a deep rooted sense of alienation and marginalization.
Each day I remember my experiences, I break out in cold sweat. It was nightmarish. It was the borderline between sanity and insanity. Those who survived such experiences intact, and without the tell-tale marks of anger, dislike or occasional bouts of remembering the times lost are few and far in-between. Now, the joblessness of every man and woman diminishes me!
Sharing and analyzing experiences are part of my duties as a historian. History has taught us to learn from our experiences. Unfortunately, (or fortunately), it has also taught us not to forget. That allows us the capacity to avoid the pitfalls of the past. I have not forgotten my unemployed days. Have I forgiven those who caused our predicament, most especially in the light of that much-abused phrase, ‘forgive and forget’? That is a story for another day! When I remember the days of waking up and having nowhere to go, I still thank my stars that I survived it all in one piece. Several of my compatriots became disabled, socially, economically and mentally. That is the context in which I have chosen to share experiences with our large progeny. They have to be told that they are not alone. We have also travelled that road before. We survived it. With luck and destiny,many of these present jobless youths will survive it. But of course, many will suffer, and many others will die in the process. Are we not living witnesses to the Immigration job interview saga?
Now that unemployment has become a more serious and long-term problem than the ruling elite has been willing to admit, we must now begin to understand it, and openly suggest ways out of the problem. The current trend that we experience now began in 1986. That was immediately after the introduction of the poisonous and pestilentialStructural Adjustment Programme (SAP) by the General Ibrahim Babangida administration. Anything before that was very mild. In 1986, we finished our NYSC and were immediately thrown into the boiling cauldron that was the severely distorted Nigerian economy. We were the very first set. The guinea pigs of the new experiment suggested by the Bretton Wood institutions. It was an unkind cut. A year before that, we had graduated and happily went to serve our fatherland in various unknown lands. We did not mind. The N200 we were paid monthly as our stipends and allowances was enough to take care of our needs. We did not need N20,000 or N200,000. The economy was rightly based. It was only from 1986 that the economy began to be rebased, and of course, debased. It was diabolic. It still is.
We were discharged from NYSC into that new economy. We neither knew what to do or where to turn to. Nobody could suggest anything because unemployment had never been witnessed on such massive scales. Everything that went on before this period was child’s play when compared to what came after. SAP had demanded downsizing, rightsizing, opening up the border to goods, and sundry other ‘antidotes’ to poor economies. Our government looked into the medicine cabinet and fed us with overdoses of all the medicines recommended by both the World Bank and the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF). But rather than get better, the economy got sicker. Our government did not use our oil wealth to transform the economy and society. Factories were closed down, people were retired prematurely, and new workers were not being hired. We were thrown into the unemployment market even before we started our lives.We were on our own. Deregulation became the new catchphrase. Everything from the economy to honour and truth became deregulated!
Was the situation different from what it is now? Yes, it was. In our unemployment days, the economy was bad- terribly bad. Nigeria was broke. We had no ideas or experiences to draw from. The ideas that ran the country aground had very close affinities with insanity and morbidity. There was SAP. Factories closed down, employment everywhere contracted, and prices went up. We pitied our parents who suddenly went from being families of two cars to no cars, and from an eating pattern of three square meals to 1-0-1 or 0-1-0. SAP was a programme precipitated by years of political and economic errors and miscalculations. Only the extremely rich could eat the normal three times a day in peace and comfort. Of course, they did so in their comfort zones- beyond the view of the prying eyes of, we the countless masses of no names. That was in 1986 when SAP was introduced into the country by the General Babangida administration. We tried to understand the country’s predicament with our own. Then the craziness started. As we were being told to bear the pains, government officials began to show unkind and unbridled profligacy. The indiscipline of the ruling class became very obvious. Only corrupt government officials and the rich did not feel the pains. In spite of the problems, there still existed major avenues for corruption and we saw it. The country’s descent into neo-patrimonialism was also ensured as people in government began to dispense patronage like never before. Procedural fairness had a brutal death. Rules and principles were stood on their heads. These even led to factional in-fighting in government. We saw a lot of blood shed. Those of us without fathers and Uncles in high places became estranged from our fatherland. We became mere spectators.
The government was confronted with a rising tide of protests. In 1987, due to acute frustrations, anti-Sap riots began. But so did brazen and sophisticated acts ofcriminality. The phenomenon of 419 became rampant. The government was powerless to stop it. It had no moral right to! Economic violence begets economic violence. Between 1986 and 1996 when SAP had run its full course, the average age of marriage for men had gone up from 28 to 34 and for girls from 24 to 28. Potential suitors had no jobs. To make matters worse, the average age of employability was raised by firms and government agencies to 28 in several cases. Once you were over that age, you were locked out of the Nigerian dream. With that, young men and women began decreasing in age every day, contrary to the laws of nature- 30 year-old men became 26 in their application letters and curriculum vitae.
Thousands of unemployed people now roam our streets. Long term unemployment has become a national malaise. Currently, an unacceptably high percentage of the present generation of youths is unemployed. They are alsomarginalised. Each day, they are assailed with the news that they are ill-trained andunemployable – this, from a government that has refused to fund qualitative education, and by employers who wanted to parachute in their foreign-trained nephews and nieces.For the present generation therefore, there is even a touch of anger, higher than what we felt in our own days. This anger arose not only because of their situation, but also due to the fact that this country makes a lot of money that is being frittered away mindlessly and uselessly. Of course, they are also dissatisfied with the way the country and theprivileged people in society are aloof and unconcerned with their situation. I hope they do not see me as one of the privileged! When the issues of high level corruption and profligacy in high places are also thrown in, there is likely to be bitterness and a desire for ‘revenge.’ While some drink away their sorrows, others have become rebellious, or have taken to crime and prostitution. Luckier and more adventurous ones take their certificates and queue up at embassies to get out of the country to go somewhere. Justanywhere. There were also those who maintained their honesty and integrity, hoping for the coming of God’s time. You cannot appreciate the fact of joblessness unless you had been jobless before or are unfortunate to be surrounded in your home or neighbourhood by jobless and angry people. And there are homes and neighbourhoods like that!
Many of these young men and women after years of pounding the streets, staying with equally embattled friends or relatives, being cheated, lied to, and sometimes abused,have always returned home, bemoaning their fates. Younger brothers and sisters see these and question the point of working hard at their studies.
This is a story of tragedy, trouble and triumph – all from an ancestor. We, theancestors of the present jobless people are now speaking up. I am borrowing the phrase used by constitution makers (in this part of the world who write up our constitutionswithout our input or agreement) to describe the unemployment situation in my days. But like the constitution makers, I am borrowing the illegitimate phrase, “We, the People”,without consulting a large cross-section of my ilk. Here then is my story.
The national service Year went very smoothly. After graduating from Ife in 1985, I was deployed to Effo-Amuro in the old Kwara State for my NYSC. It was a simple village populated by easy-going and friendly people. No, I did not seek to redeploy to Ilorin or any of the major towns. I shared close affinities with the people of the village since I also hailed from a very small town in the then Oyo State. After my service year, a person of goodwill sent me to someone about the possibility of a job. I do not remember where now. When he learnt I read History, he sneered, History? You should have read Political Science. That would have been more useful. What do you want to do in life with such a course?” I left. Downcast and discomfited. I am sure that if somebody with a degree in Political Science had visited him immediately after me, he would have sneered,‘Political Science? You should have read Anthropology.’ That was a common experience.You got to another office where the man in charge apparently graduated from school with a very low Second Class (Lower) or even a Third and he takes a look at you and says, ‘Sorry. Here, we only take people with a First Class’! That was our lot. We were insulted, abused and degraded. There was no end to the indignities.
Then something gave, and we actually began to attend interviews. Perhaps, there was light at the end of the tunnel after all! The very first interview I attended revealed to me what Nigeria had become. This was at the Oyo State Central Schools Board. The Schools Board had called for interviews for qualified people for teaching appointments. This was conducted at their office in the Oyo State Secretariat, Ibadan (their own equivalent of the Teaching Service Commission). We had arrived brimming with optimism. We all surmised that since this is our own State, they dare not ‘push us to the tiger to devour.’ I was wrong. I was too naïve. The panel was seated and they called us in 20 at a time! As we sat down waiting for them to begin, they ate ground nuts and kolanut from their saucers, drank tea and exchanged banters. They all but ignored us. Then one of them woke up to the fact that we were waiting. He then threw a question to us on Mansa Musa. We all chorused the answer and there was not attempt to even control the process. Another person asked another question and the same thing happened. After that we were all told to go. Nobody asked for our names or even asked to see our credentials. We had not put down our names down anywhere either. We were scandalised. We exchanged looks of fear. We left knowing that this was all a charade. Weeks later, they brought out the list of those recruited. My friend’s name was on the list. When I confronted him with the fact that he was neither at the interview nor in Ibadan the day we came there for interview, he smiled. You do not want to hear what he told me! I was crestfallen and thereafter, lost faith in humanity and in the country. I am still trying to find a place in my heart to forgive Oyo State for that very terrible experience. It was another unkind cut.
Then, the Lagos State Teaching Service also called for an interview. It was then Iunderstood the meaning of ‘crazy like the fox.’ I do not know who was crazier- the teaching service commission people or the applicants. It was bedlam all the way. Every single unemployed person from Enugu to Kaura Namoda, and from Bida to Ipetumodu must have shown up for the interview. The officials in charge of the exercise were confused and unorganised. They passed around several sheets of paper to write our names on. The more we did, the more they sent out more papers. It became crazy. We left for home without being interviewed. I am sure some form of list of those employed came out after that. The struggle continued. We did not give up.
One day, someone suggested that we go and pick up the Federal Civil Service Commission forms in Lagos. When we arrived at the Federal Secretariat at Ikoyi, we were ushered into the outer office of the ‘Commissioner’ representing our state. We were kept waiting for more than two hours and by mid-day, we had stretched from her outer office all the way to space. When she came out and saw us, she screamed, ‘Go away. I am not attending to anyone today.’ The more we begged her for mercy, the more she screamed at us. We were there to collect forms and not even for interviews. I never went back there again. Even if I had wanted to, I had no place to stay in Lagos. Even if I did,who wants to come and face that kind of insult and uncertainty every time?
Surprisingly, however, the Ogun State Teaching Service Commission kept faith with its mandate of recruiting teachers periodically. It was the only institution that sustained the recruitment drive. I still give kudos to them. The only problem was that you simply had to know the recruitment dates, which I suspected was determined by the side of the bed the officials woke from. There was never a specific set date for interviews.Here, I must not forget to talk about the intrigues, ill-will and envy that pervaded the act of looking for jobs. Backstabbing was quite rampant. It was also quite common. When it appeared that the heavens would smile on me through the Ogun State angle, human nature kicked in. Before I went back for my Master degree, I had been told that the Ogun State Teaching Service Commission recruited constantly. But you had to be lucky to know the specific days of such recruitments. They were usually not announced. So unless you had an insider you may not know. One thing that was sure was that once you showed up for the interview and your subject was needed, they appointed you instantly. You do not need to know anyone. At different times, two of my compatriots who had credible information about impending recruitments there passed in front of my house on the way to Abeokuta. But they never bothered to inform me. This is in spite of the fact that we did not read the same courses, and there was no way their employment could have stopped mine or mine theirs! They were also recruited instantly. They only told me after the interview.
Then the propaganda for self-employment began. In 1987, the Federal Government set up the agency for self employment, the National Directorate of Employment. It was designed to help alleviate the suffering of the unemployed youths and to provide them with the necessary skills to be self-employed. Well, some may have benefited from this but when I got to the Ibadan office where they required us to congregate for only-God-knows what, we came in our thousands. But by 2 p.m. when no official of the NDE had attended to us, many of us left. Those who lived in Ibadan could afford to wait but not those of us who came in from the ‘provinces.’ It would be nice to have a census of those who actually benefitted from this scheme. Later, advertisements flooded the radios and televisions on training for soap-making. I was not interested in that but many of my friends went for the training. Before long, everyone had become a soap maker. There was a glut in the market. You either used the soap yourself or gave them out to friends. Things could not be worse.
I was later invited to Agege by an Aunt to come and seek employment at a private school certificate lesson for intending WASCE students. When I met the proprietor, the pay he offered me was meant for somebody whom he assumed wanted to buy sweets or chewing gum. At the end of the day, I gave up and decided to go back to school. I went back to Ife. When my former teachers saw me, they were surprised. The unasked questions were obvious on their faces: when you were not recruited with a first degree in history who would recruit you with a Master in history in the days of downsizing and rightsizing? I took my chances and studied hard.
I was on my M.A. programme when the Police Force wanted to recruit. I put in an application and I was shortlisted. Friends and colleagues that also applied but who were not shortlisted saw my name among the shortlisted at the Eleiyele Command, Ibadan. Others heard my name on the radio as the police announced the dates of interview. They all kept quiet about it. They told me only several weeks after the interview. After that, I knew I would never get a job again. The country had become sick and so was everybody in it. I persevered, faced my studies and went on to pursue a Ph.D. degree in history.
A Ph.D degree is not a bed of roses – at least, in those days. I remember the sleepless nights, the agony, and of course, the shoe-string budget. But my siblings and parents rallied round me. I also took to farming and making oil from coconut. I became an adept farmer and ‘small scale’ industrialist. I was on the Ph.D. programme when my break came. My thesis supervisor, Prof. Akin Olorunfemi had called me into his office one morning during the second year of my Ph.D programme. He informed me that the Adeyemi College of Education, a Federal institution located in Ondo was about to recruit history teachers, and that I should try my luck. I put in reluctantly since I did not have a diploma in Education. Neither did I have a godfather there. At the interview, I was asked what teaching qualifications I had. I told myself, ‘wahala has come again.’ However, since I was already tired of the charade interviews had become, I also had no fear in answering their questions boldly. After all, I surmised, they had their candidates. They were only wasting my time. So I told the panel that I was eminently qualified to teach since both my father and my mother were teachers. The panel roared with laughter and the Provost of the College, a woman, retorted, “Have you ever seen anyone inheriting teaching?” Mercifully, I came first at the interview and I was recruited, even without an education diploma. Five years after my service year, I got my first job. Three years after that, Ibadan came calling. Here I am today.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since those dark days. Nigeria has now, more than ever, become a country where, by some calculations or a malignant sense of entitlement, it is possible to appropriate what belongs to the collective for personal or group benefits. More and more, the state is being insulated from the poor and the general society, thereby setting the stage for a serious implosion. How are we going to roll this back? We now have to talk about the radical revision of the Nigerian project. How do we stop the disempowerment and marginalization of youths, the old, husbands and wives?How do we stop the debasement of everything that is good in the country? How do we produce leaders with vision, and who genuinely fear and respect God?
The government and higher institutions are now suggesting entrepreneurship as a cure-all programme for unemployment. But first, we have to understand our history to know where we were and where we now stand. What good things did we have in the past? How can we pick up the pieces of our lives? Please, do not look towards the universities and the religious centres. Not just yet. The universities are now cesspools of intrigues and dirty politicking, some churches and mosques are buccaneers and our homes are out of sync. So where do we start from? Do not look here for recommendations of revolutions, street protests and our own variant of the Arab Spring. The countries where those happened are still reeling from the effects. The answer here is very simple. Let us begin from our homes. From their youth, people have now developed stereotyped mindsets to cheat, outwit, hoodwink and bamboozle others for their own selfish and personal comfort. This is because we lost control of the homes. Nobody is talking about attitude and home training. Everything flows from the homes. But the home front is now so lame-duck and unprogressive. What we have now are homes where children no longer sweep or where parents are even afraid to tell their children to weed the compound. What do we have now as a result of the failures of the home? To make matters worse, there are now parents who are incapable of giving their children a sense of direction. What you do not have you cannot give. All the bad characters that have held the nation by the jugular came out of one home or the other. Those who steal the country blind or have wrecked this nation came out of some homes. They are badly trained and indisciplined. Now, people no longer see why they also should not get into positions of authority and cut their own share of the national cake. Thus, permissive parenting translates into carefree neighbours, indolent teachers, opportunistic religious leaders and a highly inept government. What other recipes for disaster do you want? The work ethic at home must also begin to play its part. Let us cure the home. Home training strategies must be fine-tuned for us to make surer progress.
Osun State has started with its Omoluabi experiment. Let us see what comes out of it. Perhaps, it can provide the template for social revolution and re-enginering that we earnestly yearn for. Even then, that is neither the single nor the final solution. What should we also say to the thousands of our unemployed youths? First, as a jobless youth, endeavour to always build your hopes on God’s unfailing faithfulness, and His unfailing ability to completely restore and bless us beyond measure. That is standard. Secondly, since this generation turns ideas into business, we must all encourage our youths to think positively and look beyond white collar jobs. But there is a greater duty, and we are all implicated. There must be a synergy. Ethics, sound doctrine of selflessness, patriotism, healthy aspirations, sense of service, sense of duty and godliness. I am not suggesting the kind of tasteless propaganda dished out by our government. I am talking about the one grounded in our homes and in our hearts. The teachings of all these must start from the cradle all over again. Who will lead this revolution? We need conscientious and visionary leadership. Can we get it? When the road looks rough or too far, we must never give up aspiring for better things. Therein lies our hope as a nation.
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