Perhaps, one of the greatest challenges facing present-day Africa is how to narrow the rapidly increasing margin of youth unemployment. Massive unemployment in the continent is undoubtedly linked to the high rates of corruption in the system. The relative peace attained by secession of wars of attrition and internal/cross border conflicts in the continent, may soon be reversed by a new dimension of conflicts triggered by uncontrolled unemployment. African leaders apparently do not seem to realize the corollary of their neglect to the plight of youths. This phenomenon proves a point for the argument that African leaders are absolutely corrupt, inept, inconsiderate and nonchalant. They are not supportive to the concerns of youths in areas of job creation and welfare provision. Estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO, 1999) reveal that in Sub-Saharan Africa unemployment affects between 15-20 percent of the work force; and young people comprise 40 to 75 percent of the total number of the unemployed.
The population of Africa's educated youths, on one hand, increases by the day amounting to more pressure on the governments to create formal jobs. On the other hand, youths without formal education training and those that are less educated for example, motor mechanics, lumbers, woodworkers, hair dressers, plumbers, food crops and animal farmers etc; also need jobs but these groups in their numbers, frustratingly roaming the streets of Africa. The corrupt attitudes of African leaders and politicians have blinded their view on the necessity of job creation for the sake of nation building. Work provision is certainly every government's responsibility to its citizens. Work gives a sense of direction, purpose, order, and dignity to man. Joblessness undermines one's dignity and sense of belonging. It constitutes a source of unwarranted thoughts, and negative tendencies in the mind. To educate a youth, and not provide a job with which they can practice the learned skills, is like arming a soldier with a gun and expecting that he doesn't shoot even for self defense when attacked. Mass unemployment is surely a ticking time bomb. This situation is driving trained youths into crimes, violence and political vandalism as an alternative solution to their fruitless scramble over scarce job opportunities.
Corruption has absolutely undermined Africa's social, economic and political institutions and eroded the political will of governments to create, manage and sustain enabling environments for their fast growing youth workforce. Africa's unemployment crisis is rather a paradox difficult to comprehend given its abundant natural resources unmatched anywhere in the world. It is hard to answer the question of where accruals from its enormous resources are being kept, and what they are being used for considering its alarming unemployment rates which almost surpass the unemployment rates in Europe, America and Australia combined. Where are the huge incomes generated from the continent's large amounts of natural resources kept; what are they used for, by whom, when and how? With enormous diamond resources in the Congo, Zimbabwe, and Liberia; colossal reserves of petroleum resources in Nigeria, Sudan, Libya and Angola; massive forest and timber resources in Cameroon, Congo, Gabon and Central African Republic and the interminable deposits of gold in Eastern and South Africa; and phosphate in Northern Africa, why are there no jobs for young Africans to be gainfully employed and live accomplishing lives like their counterparts in Europe, America and others? No African leader is unaware of the exodus of talented and skilled young Africans some of whom end up dying through the Sahara deserts and the Mediterranean Sea in their search for jobs in Europe. The pain of all is that trained professionals such as medical doctors, accountants, engineers and lawyers who migrate from Africa into Europe, America and Australia (and now even China) end up as labourers doing odd jobs with no correlation to their trainings. That is a result of the corrupt nature of its leaders.
Corruption has not only undermined professional excellence in Africa, it has contributed largely to the brain drain factor. Apart from the deleterious effects of high rates of uncontrolled mobility of labour, African governments have failed to articulate policies to balance the rates of labour force that glaringly outstrips the amount of job opportunities available. In Nigeria for instance, some university graduates have resorted to hawking sachet water on the streets; their counterparts in Zimbabwe and Senegal are hawking tomatoes and roasted beef along the streets. While trained lawyers in Cameroon are buying and selling vegetables and fruits, and their co-graduates in Sudan are warming up for roles in the Janjaweed militia all as a result of unemployment frustration. This does not mean that it is any thing bad to hawk, but trained lawyers or professionals should be in their professional fix to match soceital needs, and hawk when they chose to, but not as a result of lack of employment opportunities.
African leaders not only pay lip services to employment creation in their long speeches and champagne conferences,, they equally have no sense of level headedness to understand the plight their people. They have failed to put in place realistic policies to reduce youth unemployment by boosting demand for labour through creating economic conditions that boost enterprises and their ability to do business and hire labour. Unfortunately, a few entrepreneurs who want to do business are not encouraged with incentives and friendly government legislations. With encouraging examples of the changing entrepreneurial landscape in Rwanda, a country that is just recovering from its genocide nightmares, it is certainly evident that millions of young Africans want to start up enterprises but their governments haven't recognised the value of creating a supportive entrepreneurial environment by providing financial assistance or loans schemes as incentives. Those that manage to start new ventures on their own are not given tax holidays. State resources which ought to be used in creating job opportunities through provision of loans schemes to establish small and medium scale enterprises are rather misappropriated by corrupt leaders. The most sordid side is that, wanton looting of state resources go unabated and the wealth stolen by African leaders is never invested into businesses or industrial ventures in Africa rather, the it is laundered into foreign accounts or used for elephant projects and luxury homes in Europe, America and Dubai where most African leaders spend a whole lot of their time and national resources leisuring at the expense of their countries. Worst of all these investments yield no interest for the improvement of African economies.
Another devastating aspect of this corrupt trend and youth unemployment is that employment opportunities circulate in circles and caucuses. Most job opportunities are usually advertised publicly with pretext to show the general public that the employers are equal opportunity providers. But in truth, such jobs are usually offered to relatives and friends of influential people whether or not they are qualified. The child of a common man who has acquired a specialised training in the university doesn't deserve a job in either a government ministry or corporation as long as he/she is not a relation or friend of a minister or director of the corporation or company in question. This is true because, even the private corporations are mostly owned by the elites who have looted state wealth. With education getting more expensive for the children of the middle and common class, limited access to equal employment further threatens the welfare of these classes of citizens. Relatives and friends of the politicians or rich private entrepreneurs get all the job opportunities leaving nothing for the common class. The unemployed lower classes are deprived of equal access to job opportunities leading to their further entrenchment in a circle of poverty. This is one unfortunate reason why Africa's rich class gets richer and its poor people get poorer.
The frustration of unemployment keeps boiling across the continent like volcanic magma ready to erupt. In Nigeria's oil rich Niger-Delta, massive unemployment has provoked youths to lose hope in the government and take to violence. Their hope rests in taking arms against employers to ask for jobs from what they believe is oil wealth that is exploited from their back yards with no benefits accruing to them in terms of jobs, good education, good healthcare, portable water provision, and infrastructure development.
Unemployment frustration in Zimbabwe is further worsened by depreciation of the country's currency which is almost as worthless as counterfeit money in spite of recent lands relocation to the indigenous population. This plan is short of effective creation of employment due to inability of the corrupt government to think straight and provide financial incentives to youths to independently run their own small scale farming ventures. The paradox of having abundant fertile land on one hand and having no capital to invest on the farms and produce yields is yet another crisis ready to explode. A similar situation is that of Cameroon where the youths of the oil rich Southwest region are getting increasingly apprehensive about their being marginalized and disadvantaged in access to employment and non provision of social amenities from oil wealth generated from their own indigenous lands. Unemployment rates in this region where abundant oil wealth and timber resources, are alarmingly threatening.
Corrupt African civil/public servants and politicians recklessly siphon government money for their selfish use either through inflation of budgets of contracts which they never execute prudently or direct stealing through fraudulent voucher and allocations. There is no doubt that African politicians like earmarking and executing elephant projects solely with the intention of embezzling the surplus. Kleptomaniacs spread across the continent like no other epidemic. Imagine the recent scandal in Nigeria of an embezzlement of a staggering forty billion (40,000,000,000) Naira by Cecilia Ibru, then General Managing Director of Intercontinental Bank PLc, which almost led to a collapse of the bank. This discovery is just a tip of the iceberg when compared to other cases of looted funds amounting to hundreds of billions of dollar by some directors and politicians uncovered by Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which has since its creation in 2004, recovered over 900 billion dollars of looted government funds. If this amount of looted funds are divided into ten, and put into judicious use, one tenth of it will build well equipped modern standard hospitals, in each of the seven hundred and fifty five (755) local government council areas in Nigeria. Imagine how many millions of doctors, nurses, midwives, lab technicians/microbiologist, pharmacists, administrators, security guards, cleaners, accountants, drivers and clerks these hospitals will employ. Another one tenth of that sum will construct and equip modern universities in each of the thirty six states of Nigeria. How many more jobs will the universities create? Without doubt, it will employ millions of both skilled and unskilled job seekers. Imagine the unemployment crises that will have resulted from the collapse of a bank that employs thousands of youth. Thousands of youths would have paid with their jobs for the act of a single corrupt bank leader.
Similarly, Cameroon's Operation Sparrow Hawk arrested a row of ministers including its former minister of finance Polycarp Abah Abah and the general manager of Credit Foncier for looting over forty billion of Franc CFA, from the bank and consequently causing its collapse. Consider Cameroon with its low state of industrial development and poverty; and then imagine how a single politician could embezzle forty billion for his private use while depriving millions of young talented youths with innovative capabilities idling on the streets of Cameroon. If such an amount were to be used in new venture creation, imagine how many enterprises it will finance and how many youths the enterprises will employ. Forty billion franc CFA will build and equip three (3) international standard universities. This amount could alternatively establish five manufacturing companies that can employ at least nine thousand youths each.
If ever there was a time for African leaders to resolve on reversing the trend of corruption, and congregate momentum on the unemployment crises, I daresay this is the time. Africa is eminently heading toward a "redundancy war" that will lead to untold catastrophes.
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