THE ongoing recruitment exercise by the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has further shown the stark reality about youth unemployment in the country. A total of 573,519 applicants are scrambling for just 3,927 positions. Curiously, the huge volume of applications was generated within a week when the NCS opened its portal following the announcement by the Minister of Finance and coordinator of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, of the approval of the recruitment exercise for 2025.
Giving the details on the exercise at a news conference in Abuja, the spokesperson to the NCS, Abdullahi Maiwada, listed the categories of officers to be recruited, including professional support staff members and those for general duty. Maiwada said: “For the general duty, we have three categories of ranks. For the general duty under the superintendent cadre, we have 249,218,000 candidates that applied. Under the superintendent cadre support staff cadre, we have 27,722,000 with Higher National Diplomas and university degrees. For the inspector cadres, those expected to apply with their Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) or National Diploma, we have 115,634 applying for the general duty, and for support staff, we have 12,952. As for the customs assistants, these are those who are supposed to come in with secondary school certificates. There are two categories: those who have basic five-credit results with Maths and English and those without Maths and English. For the general duty, we have 153,593,000, while the support staff we have 14,400.”
The figures surrounding the NCS recruitment drive are scary and show that Nigeria needs to adopt more pragmatic approaches in tackling youth employment in view of the potential danger the crisis portends. Many skilled youths have been pushed into motorcycle riding to eke out a living, while others who are mostly artisans have also abandoned their trades due to power outages. What is more, unemployment breeds criminality, substance abuse and other unworthy practices. A research by the think tank, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), indicates that the unemployment rate is far more pronounced among persons with post-secondary education in comparison to individuals with secondary and primary education. The group posits: “This implies a negative correlation between human capital development and unemployment due to a possible mismatch between labour market entrants and the industry labour requirements.” One of its recommendations is the need to revive the technical and vocational education and training scheme to accommodate graduates and school drop-outs.
Since the return to civil rule in May 1999, successive administrations have embarked on various schemes to address the malaise ravaging mostly the ranks of the youth. For instance, the Nigerian Youth Employment Action Plan (NYEAP) 2021-2024 was fashioned to actualize employment regeneration, improved skill acquisition and entrepreneurship. There is also the 3 Million Technical Talent (3MTT) programme that aims to equip three million Nigerians with technical skills, under which 60,000 youths are said to have been trained. In addition, there are schemes like the National Policy on Labour Migration, the N-Power Programme, the National Social Protection Policy, the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy 2020-2030. Yet, providing jobs for the teeming youths remains a nightmare. The indices of poverty, joblessness and uncertainties among the future leaders of the country remain huge.
The schemes have been dogged by whimsical execution, lack of purposeful coordination and supervision by the various levels of authorities who should regularly review them and get feedback from the public. There is also the issue of insufficient buy-in of the private sector, particularly operators in the informal economy. Collaboration between government and the private sector is crucial and critical to tackling the hydra-headed menace of unemployment which has continually lubricated social unrest, criminality, and social vices in the country.
Although some measure of progress may have been made in addressing youth employment through telecommunications and renewable energy, the manufacturing is gasping under severe economic hardship that hampers the employment of more skillful hands. Manufacturers are only able to operate at an abysmally low capacity. Therefore, the battle against youth unemployment requires a constant review of strategies with the aim of enhancing the capacity to tame it. A multifaceted approach backed by vision and dynamism and involving key stakeholders, the private sector and the government, is needed to tackle the problem given its correlation with the rising poverty in the land and the exorbitant cost of living among Nigerians.
More youths and graduates should be empowered with competencies and knowledge to enhance their chances for gainful employment. With the public sector providing a mere 7.0 percent of employment opportunities, there is no doubt that the informal sector and the corporate sector of the economy deserve enhanced capacity to absorb millions of the qualified youths begging for jobs. So, governments at federal and sub-regional levels should create a more congenial environment for businesses to thrive, particularly because the informal sector and the corporate world constitute the bulwark of the economy. An easy way of doing business will give fillip to enhanced productivity and serve as incentives.
Nonetheless, the current NCS recruitment process should be transparent, fair and credible to actualise renaissance in the service as a critical institution. That can only be realised if competence, knowledge and integrity as opposed to primordial factors are given preeminence. The authorities must guide against powerful and influential individuals that often hijack such exercises by imposing their favoured candidates. Needless to say, the planned youth summit by the Federal Government should serve as an opportunity for the political leadership to further evolve other ways of breaking the jinx of unemployment.
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