Dangote's Drivers

Globally, one of the best indices to assess the state of the economy of any country is the unemployment rate of that nation. It quickly tells a neutral observer how well a nation is faring in terms of quality of life and infrastructure.

A few weeks ago, Alhaji Aliko Dangote decided he needed a few truck drivers. He runs many factories across Nigeria and he felt he needed more hands in distributing his cement, flour, sugar and finished goods. So, he placed advertisements in the national dailies. To his amazement, he received 13,000 applications for the 100 slots he had to be fill. For a regular Nigerian who walks the streets of Lagos every day, you may not be entirely surprised that 13,000 people applied to fill 100 vacancies. Maybe that shocked Dangote, it won't shock a common man.

What will shock a common man however, is the fact that of this 13,000 applications, six were sent in by PhD holders and 704 by Masters degree holders. A total of 8,460 first degree holders also applied leaving just 3,830 applicants as SSCE holders and maybe those with primary education or informal education. This shocked me.

I used to have a lot of respect for PhD holders until a certain man from Bayelsa showed up. A PhD holder is a Doctor of Philosophy, one of the highest levels of educational achievement by any standard. To have not one but six Nigerian Doctors apply on their own volition to be Dangote's drivers is utterly baffling.

It may sound trivial to some. They'll wonder what the big deal is. Who cares as long as he pays his bills. For me, it is a big deal. Here is a man who spent some five or six years of his life, doing research and publishing papers. He has at least three post-secondary degrees on his resume. Can your mind comprehend the level of desperation such a man must have reached to have applied to be Dangote's truck driver? You think it's a joke? Life must have dealt severe and several blows for such a man to resign himself to fate that maybe, just maybe, his redemption was in Dangote's truck.

Proponents of the fact that many Nigerians are not true reflections of the degrees they bear certainly have a strong case. Our educational sector is in shambles and its unabated descent into the abyss of dereliction seems certain. Mr. President's thought process and decision making have certain lent credence to the school of thought that we produce half-baked -if baked at all- graduates. He, like many educated illiterates in Nigeria today, is a product of this decrepit educational system. On the other hand, I have met sound Nigerian graduates who exhibit exceptional depths of mind and character. They also passed through this supposedly ailing educational system. So, it begs the question, could it also be an individual thing? Are some PhD holders inherently bankrupt mentally? If they are, how did they formulate the thesis they put forward for their doctorate degree and even defend that thesis?

Dangote's vacancies also bring to the fore the alarming unemployment rate in the country at the moment. Pragmatically, if you are reading this, I am sure you know at least five young people looking for a job. Currently, they claim our unemployment rate in Nigeria is 21% even though Business Day recorded a rise in the rate from 21.1 to 23.9 in 2011. This rise was in spite of the Federal Government's YouWin and the recent SURE programs. One of the key issues in the build-up to today's elections in America has been what Americans term 'unacceptably high' unemployment rate. This rate was 7.9% in October 2012. That is their 'unacceptably high' rate.

Countries like Germany are the envy of America. They boast of unemployment rates around or less than 6%. Qatar's rate of 0.4%, U.A.E 2.4% and Singapore 2% are incredible. You don't need Einstein to tell you crime rate will be very low in those countries and life expectancy will be directly proportional. If Americans envy Germans, I wonder who Nigerians should envy.

We are not creating jobs because we have grounded our manufacturing sector. We import everything now, from toothpicks to apples to vehicles. Our manufacturing sector won't run till our power sector is overhauled and we reduce the cost of raw materials significantly. Nigeria is an expensive place to do business in. Ask Sir Richard Branson. Our policies do not support private sector participation. We pay lip service to wooing foreign investors when the country itself is in utter chaos. Businesses are moving to neighbouring West African countries where the costs of running businesses are significantly lower (Ghana now has an unemployment rate of 11%). Whichever sector you decide to invest in here, there's a bandwagon of pen-pushing armed robbers waiting to extort you, in the form of taxes and bribes.

Nigerian Presidents come and go just like the Governors. Each initiates one scheme or the other. Now, it's YouWin that is in vogue. What they have all failed to address is the underlying pathology in our infrastructure and economy. There will be many more of such schemes designed to empower the youth (and enrich the sycophants). Dangote will ask for more drivers in the future and believe it or not, more PhD holders will turn up at the interviews. The trend will continue just like Internet fraud, substance abuse, prison congestion and crime. The young people must engage in something, good or bad. The choice is ours.

Meanwhile, who knows how a young Nigerian Doctor can move, work and live in Singapore, Qatar or Germany?