AS Nigeria strategises find a lasting solution to youth unemployment, officer-in-charge, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Nigeria office, Dennis Zulu, has challenged the Federal Government to harness its employment and economic policies targeted at creating jobs for the youths.

The task, which he said would not be done by government alone, requires full participation of all stakeholders including the trade unions, academia, and civil society groups among others.

And unless drastic action is taken now to end the unemployment narratives, Zulu, said the situation might become worse in the nearest future owing to growing youth population in the country.

He spoke at the Distinguished Lecture series, organised by the Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos, with the theme “Youth Unemployment & Job Creation in Nigeria: Challenges & Policy Options.”

He said the time is apt for government to realign its various intervention programmes and policies targeted at creating jobs and ending unemployment so as to achieve its set goals.

His words, “It is worth mentioning that Nigeria already has in place a number of tried and tested policy options that are designed to contribute to the creation of jobs in the country. However as history has shown, having these policies is not the only precondition as there are other complementary conditions including availability of finance, skills, institutional capacities and commitment to implement.
“Also, Nigeria’s policy environment will need to be reviewed to ensure that it prioritises, facilitates and operationalises the priority of creating decent jobs. To achieve this, attention will have to be given towards ensuring an appropriate policy mix of coherent and complementary policies across all sectors of the economy. Success will not therefore depend only on the implementation of appropriate policies but also on the unwavering commitment towards achieving the job creation target.”

He continued, “The basic fundamentals and ingredients for success are there already. What is needed is the political will, support from the private sector and other stakeholders to seeing through the different interventions. There is also need to move away from viewing employment creation as a spin off from economic growth but rather as a priority objective. The emphasis should therefore be on the need to promote inclusive and sustainable pro-employment growth fuelled by a diversified economy.”

Zulu further stated that labour market policies, employability skills, youth entrepreneurship and self-employment, rights for young people; transition from informal economy to formal economy, among others should be critically harnessed.

He urged government to review the unfavourable and rigid legislation, policies, business regulations and high taxes and create friendly environment that would encourage private sector involvement in ending unemployment among youths.

He also stressed the need to get youths involved in decision-making processes aimed at finding solutions to unemployment since they are the final beneficiaries of job creation effects.

Meanwhile, Head of Economics Department, UNILAG, Prof Ndubuisi Nwokoma has earlier in his opening remark stated, “with many higher institutions churning out graduates yearly in their thousands, all hands must be on deck to address this hydra-headed issue of unemployment.”