THE LEFT-OVER GRADUATES OF NIGERIA

Nigeria is and has been a hard place to live in, and there is no doubt about this. For artisans who are self-employed or people running their businesses and are doing well, kudos to you! You guys are the real magicians. For the rest of us who are employed, we should count ourselves lucky. Many gainfully employed Nigerians have no idea how bad it is out there. Hmmm, it is baaaaad! I am a Human Resource Generalist; Recruitment and Selection is my area of specialisation. So, I know what I am taking about.

Over the years, I have seen different and diverse applicants. One common trend among applicants is “reduction/falsification of age”. Applicants can reduce anything from 1 year to 15 years off their real age! Shocking, but it is true. It is so rampart that I would say around 60% to 68% do this act. Even the Generation Millennial; you will see someone with true Date of Birth (DOB) of 1992 giving a false DOB of 1994 or 1995. At first, I got irked over this and tended to view such applicants with skepticism. In Human Resource, falsification of any record is a sound no-no and the act already puts a dent on the applicant's integrity.

While not condoning this practice, over time, I have come to realise that they are only doing this because our society has conditioned them to adopt such strategy for survival. They are nothing but the “leftovers” of their generations, and I do not mean the leftover as a derogatory label but as an understanding for their plight. From secondary schools, Nigerian youths have been struggling to survive in a society that deliberately makes things hard for them. They struggle to pass JAMB; struggle to gain admission to limited spaces in our higher institutions; struggle to graduate from their schools (specifically government-owned as many average families cannot afford privately owned institutions) with school-calendar years filled with incessant strikes and upheavals; struggle to go for National Youth Service Year, etc. For years, all they know how to do is to struggle for things the government cannot easily provide, thereby losing years in the process. And when they are through with their education and NYSC, and go into the labour market, they come across age barrier set up to block their attempts at finding jobs. All hail the Human Resource Practitioners (HR) as they would smugly declare, “Vacancies for graduates, must not be above than 23 year old with at least 3 years working experience". Kindly tell me, where is the experience going to come from? From the time they spend in their mother's wombs or from their years of struggling to get half-baked education, or is it the one year they spend in serving their Father's land that will multiply into three years? I don't know if I can trust figures quoted online without well-known references but months back, I read an article about Nigeria having over five million graduates that are not employed. Note this, these five million Nigerians are not underemployed or self-employed in their businesses; they are simply not employed at all. And these are all HND and BSc degree holders, with a larger number of them having higher degrees such as MSc and PhD. Imagine the figure if we add lower qualifications (NCE, ND, other Diplomas and WAEC)?  It is simply mind boggling and enough to fry one's brain if one thinks too much about it. It is really crazy!

Now get this: we have millions that are unemployed but yearly, our universities and polytechnics (both government-owned and private ones) churn out around two hundred thousand graduates to add to the unemployed figure. What is the yearly forecast on job openings in Nigeria? I can’t find a valid reference but it is way lesser than two million, more like between five hundred thousand and a million (for all jobs oh!). So each year, we have more people joining the labour market that is already saturated and bulging with unemployed applicants, holding on to hope that they will eventually get jobs. Unlike the older graduates, the younger graduates have age as an advantage, as well as being recent graduates who still retain much of what they were taught in schools. It is no brainer that Recruiters will go for them. Meanwhile, the older graduates are getting older and have less chances of being picked because of their age. The private universities are not helping matters for these older graduated, as they are busy churning out 18 and 19 year old graduates with so-called First Class and Second Class Upper degrees (labeling it so-called doesn’t mean it is derogatory. It is just that I have met some disappointing First Class graduates that would not even have earned Second Class Upper in some prestigious government-owned schools). By 22 of age, some of these graduates already have their Master’s degree and are aiming higher. The children of the Rich and Powerful Nigerians are even more threatening; they school abroad and come back with Masters in their early twenties, some even having PhDs at 25 years of age. Tell me, how is the graduate “pikin” of a common Nigerian (a child who attended a government owned institution, spent 5 years for a 4 year program in a school lacking basic learning tools, graduated with a Second Class Lower) expected to compete with the savvy graduate child of the Rich, who at 23 of age, is already academically far advanced for an entry-level position?

 TO BE CONTINUED                                                                                            

Written By Edith Mokwe, an ACIPM licensed HR Practitioner residing in Lagos. She has B.A from the University of Benin (UNIBEN), and an M.A from the University of Lagos (UNILAG). She loves research, creative writing and board games. An introverted-extrovert and by every way a multi-dimensional being who is not only a lover of African Arts but one who stands up to bullies and finally an addict to sugary foods.