UNEMPLOYMENT is not new to Nigerians. They have grown used to reading about the general failure of the state called Nigeria and by extension, have come to understand the futility of trying to redirect the tragic trajectory of their own existence. We have heard gory stories of “700,000 applicants jostle for 5,000 positions in the Customs”, let alone the Nigeria Police Force.

Such was the case in Edo State. When Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole’s Rapid Respond Agency advertised for 10,000 job vacancies, over 100,000 jobless applicants turned in their applications. They stormed the recruiting office in droves. Owing partly to the fact that Nigerians are used to reading about such unfortunate instances when young Nigerian graduates line up expectantly at the entrances of corporate organisations hoping for God’s divine miracles, they attached much importance to the report. Unemployment is no longer strange to Nigerians; it is a monster they have come to accept as the new reality of the national life.

In the Edo, there were reports that applications were received from all parts of the country, meaning that the unemployment monster is not resident in one part of the country. Its influence has spread and its damning consequences are beginning to be felt across the nation. The hapless job seekers would be hoping that they would be among the lucky candidates that would eventually get the jobs. But, of course, Nigerians know they would be hoping against hope, as it is not unexpected that the powers that be would have had their own candidates for the vacant positions. The usual Nigerian practice is for the positions to be advertised after they have been filled but Edo was an exception; no political undertone or favoritism.

Helping to clear my doubt, Oshiomhole, in a remarkable departure from the traditional approach that every other government adopted in the face of dwindling revenue against the expectation of the people was to regard workers as a cost agent; but that is not an option for Oshiomhole. For other government, they saw workers as a burden and so thought that the solution was to reduce the workforce by downsizing. This, in Oshiomhole’s estimation, is not a solution.

Edo State government under the stewardship of Oshiomhole will not and hasn’t retrenched workers as it is not a solution to paucity of funds. The Governor’s attitude is that workers are the greatest resources that we have because they are creative agents. He said: “We will advertise for the employment of doctors in our hospitals. I approved the employment of 1000 teachers. In the next three months, (over a year now) we should be able to employ 3000 teachers.

“We have also decided to employ more nurses. There is no reason why we have a school of nursing and nurses graduate without jobs. Since the budget have been passed, we will roll out the drums and in my next speech, I will not tell you what we are going to do, I will be showing you what we have started doing”.

The Governor understands that in civil service, the gap between a Director and a Permanent Secretary is so wide such that civil servants in the state can rise to grade level 16, while their counterparts at the federal level can rise to grade level 17. Again, he does not believe the sense behind this relegation and as such pronouced that civil servants in the state can rise to grade level 17 because that is the only way we can remove the glamour and curb the desire by everybody to become a Permanent Secretary.

Oshiomhole who sees workers as responsible people lifted the embargo on promotion and employment. In his words: “I have said that we will employ 10,000 workers. We have done what we need to do, procure all the uniforms before we ran into some legal issues. We need an enabling law to create the employment of 10,000 jobs. We are in a hurry to move on and while we continue to put pressure on the House of Assembly to pass the bill into law, we are looking at exploring other avenues available to us to create these jobs”. And this has been fulfilled.

Oshiomhole said government has no duty to join the citizens to lament the dwindling revenue accruing to the state because he is convinced that his challenge was to mobilize the people to take control of possible solutions to cushion the effects.

Always on the side of the people both in terms of advocacy and articulating all sorts of issues that concern their welfare, Oshiomhole has a responsibility as governor to provide leadership such that can improve the welfare of everybody or at least, the majority. He had also argued as President of the NLC and even as a Governor believes that we can’t lament poverty away but attack it and the most potent weapon is job creation. He was not employing out of pity; he employed them first because there are jobs for them in the public sector as he involved them in the on-going city beautification, traffic control and re-introduced monthly sanitation.

He also believes that unemployment is the root cause of the crimes of kidnappings and armed robbery and as such people should be allowed to keep their jobs. Our people are entitled to earn incomes as only very few will resist the lure of hunger and one cannot expect a hungry man to behave responsively.

The figure of qualified applicants was drawn from about 52,867 applications received, from which a basis of computer random selection process was stratified through a central data base according to the various local government areas. The committee in its report allocated about 50 percent of the opportunity to environmental sanitation and beautification sector, about 15 percent to traffic control and another 15 percent went to health inspection unit. The day and night guards have 50 percent, while 25 percent goes to the road maintenance sector in the pre- allocation of the recommendation to the state government.

The exercise was made possible by the joint effort of about 300 recruited workers which also included about five data entry firms deployed for that purpose, just as the work of members of the committee at the end led to an all inclusive result of the number of viable data base and also determine the number unemployed people in the state for future reference.

Mr. BONAIVI OZIOTU, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Benin City, Edo State.