The plan by the administration of President Muhmmadu Buhari to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty seems like a tall order with the revelation that about 65 million of the country’s youths could be jobless in the next four years.
That is approximately one in every three Nigerian going by the country’s population of about 200 million people.
The minister of state for Science, Technology and Innovation, Mohammed Abdullahi, who made this comment in a goodwill message at the Generation Unlimited Nigeria Launch in Abuja yesterday, warned that about 65 million Nigerian youths could be unemployed in 2025 due to predicted economic disruptions and other indicators around the world.
The minister, in a statement issued by the media unit of the ministry, called on government and the Organised Private Sector (OPS) to initiate urgent interventions in order to engage Nigerian youths to make their lives more meaningful.
He made a reference to a disturbing 2020 report by the managing director of World Economic Forum (WEF), Saadia Zahidi, who said that in the next five years, about 85 million jobs will be disrupted around the world due to lack of skills, population, robotics and remote work, among others.
The minister further said that “the 85 million persons globally comprise about 65 million of our Nigerian youth, which is alarming and gloomy, and needs to be arrested urgently.”
He further commended the initiatives of Jobberman, which works at developing soft skills curriculum and placements to make Nigerian youths employable and capable of generating employment.
The minister said the Generation Unlimited platform is also aimed at creating better education, skills, employment and entrepreneur opportunities for young persons, adding that the programme is at the heart of challenges facing the global youth population and believes the initiative by UNICEF would help in bridging the gap.
“Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation is willing to partner with UNICEF in this direction, especially in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) as a tool to engage the youths meaningfully,” he said, adding that the ministry will partner with UNICEF to create sustainable and skilled youth manpower for job and wealth creation.
