INTRODUCTION
I appreciate the feedback and comments generated by our last discussion on “Management Solutions to Youth Unemployment in Nigeria”. Today I shall i) add ‘restiveness’ to the title to reflect the present psychology of many youths, ii) attempt to unearth the root of the current state of the country and iii) generate a germane management solution to our mismanagement. You are welcome.
NIGERIA: YESTERDAY AND TODAY
Before the discovery of oil in 1956, Nigeria was famous for her agrarian economy. Adequate food crops properly fed our nearly 50 million citizens. Cash crops like palm produce (oil and kernels); cocoa, rubber, timber, groundnuts, benniseeds and so on were massively sold to foreign countries; Nigeria was a major exporter of commodities.
Tertiary education was standard with students from a variety of countries; my uncle’s admission letter to study Accounting at the University of Lagos was sent to his home in Lokoja by the defunct P and T, teachers were well remunerated, respected and not subjected to spurious performance tests, ‘modulated’ salaries and promotion delays.
Water, electricity and security were taken for granted. No one phoned home from the office to ask ‘’ Dem don bring light?’’ because there was always light, since God said ‘’Let there be light’’. The generation that was around will find it difficult to believe that we are in the same Nigeria today. Our health institutions were not ‘mere consulting clinics’; I was told that the king of Saudi Arabia came to UCH Ibadan for treatment in the 1960s. Today will lowly Saudi serfs come here for medical care?
The story changed when oil was discovered in 1956 and interest in anything not connected to oil disappeared. Oil revenues were not channelled to infrastructural and developmental projects.
That is the major reason Nigeria is infrastructurally inferior to even third world oil producing countries like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Libya. Another sad fact is that very few Nigerians have been feeding fat on the collective wealth of the country with these consequences:
1. Neglect of the region producing the wealth in terms of infrastructural development and environmental management
2. Abandonment of other sectors of the economy and concentration only on the oil sector making Nigeria a mono-economy nation.
3. Unexplained/unjust allocation of oil blocks to political cronies
4. Corruption: within and without the country and in the oil and gas industry.
5. An unholy alliance among some unethical oil and gas companies, with the active but veiled support of some governmental, traditional and religious leaders, to suck Nigeria dry.
All these cumulatively gave rise to the current state of restiveness, violence, insecurity, unemployment and extreme poverty in the Niger Delta and the country as a whole.
We cannot blame the youth groups agitating for resource control, secession, proper federation or ‘stomach infrastructure’. Some leaders in the past and present have failed them, they sowed corruption and we are now reaping the negative whirlwind.
MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
Unemployment and security challenges may look different, but they certainly have the same root, a mismanagement of different resources. This mismanagement and its effects can be cured by the following management solutions:
1. PROVOKING CREATIVITY, INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENUERSHIP
If you tell the average fresh graduate that after the National Youth Service s/he might be unable to secure employment for months or years, what will s/he say? I can guess that the answers may be more religious than rational, like, “Not my portion”, “I cancel it”, ‘I reject it’, “God forbid”. One may not blame anyone that comes up with such answers because we were taught about earning returns and transferring the risk to a “super spiritual being”. This shows in our planning. We plan with no risk element because we believe God will take care of that. Our spiritual leaders have told us; God will bless us with ‘Treasure in Pleasure without Pressure’ or that God will give us a ‘neck breaking, boat sinking’ miracle. It may not always be like that.
It is important to note that, in times of economic depression or downturn, money does not travel out of the earth. What happens is that it changes hands from those who do not know how use it to those who will better manage it. For how long do we continue to roast at a particular point complaining that Nigeria is bad? For how long are we going to expect the government to provide jobs for all graduates? If our unrealistic expectations are unmet we will start blaming everyone but ourselves.
How long are we going to continue the blame game? First we blamed the colonial masters for our underdevelopment and economic backwardness, later we blamed the politicians, then the military; even the military blamed other military and civilian governments. Now civilians blame civilians, the APC blames the PDP and vice versa, the Executive arm of government blames the Judicial and Legislative arms who in turn blame each other and the Executives. We are quick to pass the buck. We accept responsibility only for our successes and not for our mistakes and failures. 90% of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses because what majorly determines your level of success or failure is you. This is based on the simple formula, E (Event) + R (Response) = O (Outcome). Your response to the events in your life greatly determines the outcome; if your response is zero, the outcome will also be zero!
Creativity is not the mystical attribute reserved for the lucky few like Steve Jobs or Chike Obi. Everyone has creative potentials which can be developed with practice, the correct process and zeal. Strive to equip yourself and your team with the mind-set, skill sets and toolsets of highly successful innovators. Developing creativity, innovation and leadership capabilities require you to adapt to changes, stay competitive, improve business performance and make a positive difference in Nigeria and in the world. This is just one management panacea to mismanagement.
(To be continued next week)
Sunday Ade Bello (SAB) is a multi-talented and an analytically inspired management trainer, writer and examiner. He is the CEO of WorkLife Training Professionals, Lagos.
