Saturday, September 28, 2013

THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA AND MOUNTING INSUCURITY- WHY WE MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO ENSURE SECURITY ACROSS THE COUNTRY!

THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA AND MOUNTING INSECURITY- WHY WE MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO ENSURE SECURITY ACROSS THE COUNTRY! Are you worried that arsonists suicide bombers, terrorists armed robbers and kidnappers are increasing in number everyday in our country? Well consider the following: -According to the former minister of education that out of about 1.7 million of Nigerian youths who sit for Jamb only a paltry number of about 500,000 would be given admission by a combination of all universities and polytechnics owned by Federal government state governments and all private universities and polytechnics! This leaves about 1.2 million youths roaming the street - out of about 500,000 graduates each year from all the universities and polytechnic less than 150000 are likely to get employed ; that leaves about 350000 joining their counterparts to loaming the street! We now have a global total of over1,5 million youths loaming the street each year. In ten years if this trend is not checked; 15 million youths would be loaming the street! That is about 10% of the entire nation’s population and about 45% of the active youth force! Have you also considered this? - In all the developed nations about 70% of the entire work force is employed by the agric sector and SMEs. In Nigeria the banks lend less than 1% of their money to agric related business and even sometime less than five percent of their money to SMEs! This m4eans that the two vital sectors that would have helped to crack down on unemployment are starved of the much needed leverage instead the banks in Nigeria make money available to sectors that have little bearing on creating employment to the teeming population of Nigeria unemployed. Are you surprised at this? You shouldn’t. Nigerians who are into private business when they go into politics become politicians there they allocate whooping amounts to themselves as allowances salaries privileges; the senate President for instance is alleged to be taking home over a hundred million Naira each year , that is officially; He had once been a n army General and is on army pension; he had once been a minister, he should also be on a kind of pension though not quite clear may have also served as a military governor if true may also be on a kind of pension there too and he is also alleged as conversing that Senators earn a life pension so once that is approved he alone would be benefiting from three to five different pensions packages! Back to the main talk when a politician has finished what he came to do in the government house, he sheds his overflowing dress; ‘agbada’ and takes up suit and most likely invest in banking business! So why should you now expect him, to dish out his stow away money to help farmers and SMEs. The politician couldn’t help the citizens while in office it is now he is investing his money in banking he would start helping the citizens! Recently a whopping 600 billion Naira of tax payers money was pumped into four banks; well the reason that sounded nice was that that was to save depositors from imminent collapse of the affected banks but if you care to look carefully you may have noticed that it was one gang of politicians or private business people outwitting the other gang! It was easy for the government to dole out over half a trillion Naira in a deal that was highly doubtful who the actual beneficiary was; however if the Government could make a similar amount available to observed banks that had been there for the Agric sector and SMEs it would have sure achieved a better result in creating the much needed employment! For purpose of analysis if half a trillion Naira is given out to borrowers from agric and SMEs sector at an average of 200,000 Naira per borrower that would mean that about 2,5 million entrepreneurs would be created. If each of the entrepreneur employ on the average only 4 persons, it means that 10,000,000 Nigerians would have been employed You agree that this number of unemployed out of the labor market would sure have a great impact in the economy and most importantly in the lives of the citizens. Out of this whopping number a serous number of those willing to hack off citizens’ necks just to survive would have been reduced. A chunk of those who are willing to use AK47 to blow out the brains of citizens would be reduced. A chuck of those willing to tie fellow citizens up like cow in the name of kidnapping to extract money just to survive would have reduced as well as reduction in the number of people willing to wear a belt of explosives to kill fellow citizens in supermarkets, theatres hotels churches and mosques would also reduce. I am sure that perhaps President Jonathan had realized his mistake of giving such a whooping amount of money to bankers without any clear definition of what the huge outlay was and hence his speech at the bankers’ forum recently. However if the President is serious and not merely playing with words like his predecessors he should wake up quickly and do what must be done. He must identify banks that have been friendly to agric sector and SMEs on their own volition and provide for them an employment intervention fund of N500 billion. This fund should not be given out to the identified banks at more than 3% per annum and the favored banker will borrow it at not more than 7% per annum to borrowers from Agric sector and SMEs With that I ma sure nearly 10 million jobs would be provided for Nigerians. And that would reduce all the insecurities that plague us as a nation!