Emeka: So hope you had a fantastic week so far, your one and only Mummy G. O sends in greetings and once again, Happy Mother’s Day to every mothers out there. My name is Emeka Aaron and I’m excited to be here once again on another episode of The Good Citizen radio show which is brought to you by CSR-in-Action, and proudly sponsored by ACT Foundation. Let’s continue to support one another and celebrate our diversity. We’ll go on a commercial break now and we’ll be back shortly.
Did you know that unemployment and under employment are major challenges facing the Nigerian youth. According to the latest National Bureau of Statistics labour force report, the unemployment among Nigerian youths is within the ages 17 to 35 years is the highest in the country with 21.72 million young Nigerians in the labour force on employed. Today, we’re going to be talking to a lead consultant on employability and in Nigerian youths. We have Mr. Shola Tobun the lead consultant and founder of Realms Consulting firm with us today in the studio. Good afternoon, Mr. Shola.
Shola: Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
Emeka: Thank you. And I hope you’re doing well today, sir. Nice to have it today join us in the studio today.
Shola: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Emeka: Thank you and welcome. Okay, so can you tell us about your company in Realms Consulting?
Shola: All right. Realms Consulting is a value driven business consultants. Major areas of focus, HR consulting, organisational development, consulting, business development, advisory and strategy consulting. has been around for about six years.
Emeka: Really? Wow, good stuff. Good stuff. Okay, so today, we’re going to be talking about employability and the Nigerian youths. So what are the challenges the major challenges facing the Nigerian youth in terms of securing a job?
Shola: Well, thank you. The challenges of Nigerian youths with regards to securing a job are multifaceted. There are many parts to you know, so we have, for instance, the economy itself. The fact that we’re not as production driven as we should be, as some of the other economies that have low unemployment, youth unemployment rates, we are mostly consumption, a common Of course, that has implications for the availability of jobs. So number one, with regards to the Nigerian news, the need for a job is first the availability of the jobs themselves. Not as many jobs out there for the Nigerian youth to apply to. I know when I say this, sometimes it is difficult, even as an HR professional, which I’m likely I am largely, because many other times we find that we’re also trying to look for good quality candidates that we can find. We spend days sometimes weeks looking for candidates I want to find that seems like a direct opposite is when I say that there are no available jobs. But yes, it actually that’s the starting point. Because then we look at the number of people who are seeking the jobs as compared to the number of jobs that are available. There are very little and that’s basically because of the way our economy is structured. The sectors of the economy that should promote the availability of jobs such as manufacturing is not as functional stock doubles economic or those sectors themselves are not where they should be, you know, agriculture, for instance, which is also one of the areas where the government has really been hoping would help to create jobs has not really been doing that. So that’s basically it.
Emeka: Even with all the funds that the federal government have been putting in
Shola: A lot of work. You know, I’ve also been involved in some of these projects. This brings me to another part of the fact why Nigerians are not able to secure jobs for themselves. Because we also have a lot of Nigerian youth who are given those opportunities through those intervention programs, and they are given the funds and then they just squander it. You know, we have had situations where I’ve had situations where I said I’ve been sponsored. Training, you can see they’re really not interested in the training; they just want to get the money. You know, so that I think is also a major problem, but in Nigeria and use and of course, I will be careful not to generalise. So it’s not all the Nigerian, you find themselves in this situation. But yes, there are quite a number of people who are also to some extent, the architects of their own current predicament. Yeah, all the factors are cues, deficits, the fact that our educational systems, they disconnect with our markets with the labour market, what they are teaching in schools are no longer relevant. They are not things that are tangible, I want to give a quick example, to describe this, I remember when I was in Uni, towards the early part of 2000, that I had a professor who would dictate from his head and I was one of the best universities. And I would like to say it’s the first and the best. And this professor would dictate on his head, for us to write, the same university professor to go look two years, is the same thing that he dictated from his head that is speaking to us. In other words, this professor has not moved, this professor has not learned anything. And for those of us I know the world we live in today, we say is a vocal world in terms of volatility or certainty, complexity and ambiguity change is constantly happening. So you cannot be teaching something today, you know that you had probably come up or jot like five, six years ago, and you think that I’ll go to the labour market and assume that I’m irrelevant, you know, so then that also contributes to definitely the fact that the Nigerian youths are unable to secure jobs. It’s a hydra headed forum as I said.
Emeka: Yes. So if I get you correctly, the people who are also supposed to empower the youth with new knowledge and new information, are even giving the youths outdated information.
Shola: Yes. Unfortunately, in many of our schools, perhaps not as many of the private schools because I guess these ones are doing better. But even some of them are still not, because it’s just many of the people in the federal schools, or public schools that come in to take second jobs in the private sector. So that also deepens the problem. For funding also different work culture, the fact that our youth, perhaps again, when I say this, I remember when the President said the Nigerian youths are lazy, I don’t think he said that at the right platform. And I said it the way he said it, but the truth is that there is a cultural change in terms of our orientation towards work. And that’s because maybe they see some of our adults and they feel that look, you worked this hard, what do you have to show for it? And we have so many examples out there. Some of these people make it look like the money they made are so easy to make, but the truth is, some of them are hard for even the so called social media influencers are also working hard for their money. So I think this is part of the problem.
Emeka: Thank you very much. So what specific interventions may be used to improve employability among the Nigerian youth?
Shola: I think you know, I usually like to start from the person. Earlier on, I said, you know, irrespective of what the society seems to see, or what the culture is predominant culture among certain youth use to be, you know, you must determine to yourself that certain work ethic, I was given a training on work ethic some time ago, and I was talking about how important it is for people to demonstrate the right work ethic. And if you look in any organisation, the people who get promoted, the people who stand up at the end of the day are the people who show the strongest work ethic, strongest attitudes to work, when you’re given work to do, will you pay attention to get it done? That’s number one. And the fact that your life is in your hands, you can’t keep blaming the world for your problems, we live in a time where you can ignore us is no longer excuse the world rather than you can literally learn anything, so your school may have failed you, but you can still run, you can attend to lectures from some of the top universities in the world for free, by just doing on the internet, you know, and today’s data, data is much cheaper, cost of mobile devices are much cheaper. As really as they said ignorance is not an acceptable, it’s not an excuse.
That’s number one for me. Yeah, the second part two is in terms of improving employability of the Nigerian youth to be to, bridge the gap between the ivory towers, and the labour market, you know, so we have to have more engagement. I was fortunate to have worked in Lagos Business School many years ago. And I enjoyed I like the fact that a number of industry professionals will come into class to teach their graduate business students about the practical aspects of what they’ve been learning in class. You know, and I think that made it easier for them to blend in. So when they leave the class, immediately, they’re able to apply what they’ve learned, because they immediately the applicability, I think we should not be limited to a few private graduate schools, I think you should be cut across, public schools at undergraduate level, people should be able to see what the relevance of what they’re learning in class, know how they can really use it to add value to the organisation when they are done. I studied psychology, and you could start in my own first degree, is like, a jack of all trades Master. Yeah, so you have to consciously see how, what some of your, some of what you’ve learned, can be used in an organisation, for you to be employable. Yeah. And but, of course, as I said, that starts with you, but also the schools can help by building adjunct professors by bringing people in, in the businesses to come act as adjunct professors whatever. And that will definitely help in some depth and stability. Of course, we also know that there has been a lot of skills development. Initiatives, like the ADVC are so opposed to after graduate. Because the program have been going on for quite a while. And I know that a lot of other organisations that are running employability skills programs. And some of these things are supported by the private sector. And I think we need to see more of that, organisations also need to see as part of their CSR. So either they invest in such NGOs as ACDC, or they have their own programs, where they just try to develop employability of young graduates. I think that’s just to put in now, the career coaching and mentoring should happen more in schools, so that people do not come up. And they have no they have no idea where they’re going to, internships, paid internship and apprenticeships. You know, so the companies also need to allow for that they need to bring in people let them have a I mean, look at ASUU strike for how many months. It’s so sadly, but at least I know a few people there particularly an architecture students of the Lagos State, University of Lagos, and she came to work in an architecture firm that I have on connections, what you learn what you learnt in these six months or so period. I don’t think you will learn it in next year. Once you go back to school, I’m serious. So she’s already useful actually, because before she finishes her degree, the organisation can see how they can develop her.
Emeka: Thank you very much. Okay, so we’re still on the show, and if you have any opinion, so our listeners will be able to be part of this show. If you have opinions and questions or suggestions about a topic that we’re discussing today, which is youth and employability in Nigeria, we would love to hear from you. And you can reach us on our phone line on 0700923923923. Or you can send us a WhatsApp message on 08173136193. So, while we wait for your calls we are going to have to continue the conversation with Mr. Shola. So Mr. Shola, according to the Ministry of Labour and employment, Senator Chris Ngege, most youths in Nigeria, are unemployed because they lack function now skills. Do you agree with this statement from the Senator?
Shola: Well, I mean, I’ve made a few statements to suggest that in some way, what he’s saying is to go to go by data, I think, the data from 50% of Nigerian youths are unemployed or unemployable, this was this was their own data. In some way it’s true. However the challenge I have with the statement, when the government seems to be putting the sole responsibility for that situation on the Nigerian youth. We don’t have the functional skills. This is the Minister of Labour Employment. What did he do to create an enabling environment for the Nigerian youth. For instance, Industrial Training attachment, industrial training fund, I believe, is under the Ministry of Labour. How well have they done in terms of monitoring, industrial training and expanding the reach industrial training across various courses in Nigerian universities? When I was in university, as I said, I studied psychology in my first degree. And there was no IT I was happy. A few years maybe four or five years afterwards, I got to know that idea of IT, because then it gives them an opportunity to apply some of the knowledge they’ve learned. They’re like, what do you want to do? What can you do? You know, and they now begin to ask themselves questions, all the things. Where does he fit in? And when orientated by the general work environment, they go back to the school environment with the knowledge that they’re trying to gather, because now they know what the market is asking for. So I think the question we had is true, what he said, but at the same time, as I said, the situation the problem is beyond whether they have the skills, there are people who also have the skills and don’t have to have the job. Yeah.
So it just availability of jobs, you know, so the other sectors, I mean, for instance as a manufacturer, have we looked at ease of doing business index, have we improved on it? You know, I know many because we do small Business Advisory a lot. Many Nigerian businesses keep dying day to day. Some of the large conglomerates that we’ve had in Nigeria, the luxury of them, two of them Proter and Gamble, and some other big companies have moved out of Nigeria, some of them moved to our neighbouring West African countries to set up factories these are practice that should be engaging us. And what’s interesting is that the sectors that are really growing like construction, again, that is part on part of the Nigerian youth problem. They don’t want to do apprenticeship, they don’t want to learn hand skills, and we now begin to bring the Togolese.
Emeka: Now, that brings that brings me to my next question, right? Underemployment, does it contribute to the employment crisis that we have an engineer and how do we solve this?
Shola: I mean, yes, definitely it does, you know, because combined deployment now we’re having a situation whereby somebody has a certain level of skill and knowledge and he is the number of work hours, that he has to be able to apply himself to his professional training or what he had been trained for, is much smaller than the standard should be. So definitely availability of jobs, still impacts on the persons in the supply chain. And unfortunately, because there are not many jobs, we have so many large numbers of people, I now speak as an HR professional, we are forced to say, you receive like 100 applications for two job positions. You know, they begin to look for screening criteria. Unfortunately, we find people using master’s degrees for jobs that they know, are just graduate level jobs. They’re just jobs that are for two years level, they begin to add to experience. Just to screen. The number of the experience I don’t think it’s a fair practice. And I definitely try to avoid them. Yeah, but again, that’s also how the HR professional sometimes contributes to work through the worsening situation where in terms of graduates being able to secure some of our practices are for our convenience, but they’re not necessarily fair to the to the graduates out there, to be honest. So does this does now because the HR person seems to be asking for higher degrees and we have people going back to acquire more degrees and further diving such ideas of underemployment because now you have the first degree. Infact somebody finishes with an OND and goes I have to do HND to get a job. It still doesn’t work. He does the BSC. He does a first masters does a second master’s like people like me, we have people with three master’s degrees and the job that they’re being given to do a lot to write about. So yeah, like I said, availability drives certain behaviours, and those behaviours, drive down underemployment index.
Emeka: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So we’ll go on a short break now. And when we return, the conversation continues. Don’t go anywhere.
Okay, so if you’re just joining us, we’ve been speaking to Mr. Shola Tobun who is a lead consultant of Realms Consulting. Mr. Shola. Thank you very much. We’re still here. So one last question, I would like to ask you before we close the show today, it’s what advice do you have for the Nigerian youths who are struggling to find unemployment? Any possible job sites that they can search to help them like, like facilitate getting the job for them?
Shola: Okay, so why do people like graduated from the University with a very few number of jobs websites where we find vacancies. But today, they are tons and tons. And to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be able to say that I have count of the number of jobs out there definitely jobberman is one of the most reputable ones there, Niger jobs and many of them. I think they should just Google, what kind of jobs that they’re looking for. And it will literally just come out to them the number, the job site they should go to, but obviously any serious jobs site, platform will not be seeking for money or any of these things from you.
Emeka: Because sometimes you hear applicants say there are some site that ask to pay some money to be able to get job listings.
Shola: No, no, I would definitely not recommend that you do that. I will just say that. Look, look at the ones that are not, because a lot of HR professionals don’t even use a paid job sites, we just put it out there are some of the free ones and people can apply. Of course, LinkedIn is definitely a place you need to be. But whether you’re working, you had experience or not, you definitely should have a LinkedIn profile. There’s a lot online, there are LinkedIn visibility, coaches that do free training on how you should look on how you can appear on LinkedIn. So that’s what to be interested in. You’ll see some gorgeous pictures that you put on Facebook and all Instagram, put it on LinkedIn. You know, you’re like, Okay, with all the poses that are very unprofessional and you’re supposed to be on a professional website. There’s a lot to learn in terms of being able to attract an employer.
Emeka: Thank you. Thank you very much. We do hope that we’ve all learned from this discussion about employability and in Nigeria and youth. And thank you very much Mr. Shola for joining us today on the show and thank you to everyone who listened to the show. And we do hope that you have a lovely weekend ahead until next time, let’s continue to be lights to one another. The show is brought to you by CSR-in-Action, and proudly sponsored by ACT Foundation, and now remain your one and only Emeka Aaron. Stay safe. God bless you until next week. Bye bye
