Worried at the rate of youth unemployment and inability of government to develop the  economy through a well organised SMEs and entrepreneurial process which developed countries embarked upon. Chief (Barrister) Andrew Ovikuroma Oru, is a Certified Management Consultant and Chairman of companies who spoke in this interview with Moses Nosike, revealed steps to address youth unemployment, SMEs and entrepreneurship and economic development in Nigeria. Excerpts:

What is your view on youths being the future of this country?

Andrew Oru

We’ve been hearing this for quite sometime, unfortunately if you look back 20 years ago, we said the youths are the future of tomorrow, 20 years later that tomorrow has not yet come because the same players who were there 20 years ago are still there today. So, when is that future going to come?  The people who are the adults of today were the youths of 20 years ago.  The people who were elders of yesterday are the same persons who are playing the roles youths are supposed to play today.

So it appears that the youths of yesterday and today have been pushed out and certainly from what we can see, the people who are youth today will not be in any position to control this country tomorrow because they are inequipped and don’t know anything about governance and society. This is very unfortunate because by that time those who were in charge yesterday and are still in charge today would have been too old to do anything, it becomes difficult to replace. Which means actually that the future of Nigeria is bleak and that is something we should begin to weep over if you ask me.

The economic system is creating little or no jobs for our teeming youths, with many losing their jobs, how can we as a nation tackle this national challenge?

It is not only that the Nigerian state is not offering or creating new jobs, they are even removing the ones that are there by closing up the economy. An open economy is the only one that can guarantee the opening up of spaces, employment and engagement, unfortunately government seems to be concentrating more on banning this, banning that, restricting all sort of things, thereby creating a restricted economy that only ensures that only those who have few slots of  employment in government parastatals are the only ones that make up Nigeria at the end of the day.

It is bad to think that both federal and state governments can only employ a maximum of 2 -3% of the Nigerian populace and yet we spend 70 – 80% in actual terms of Nigerian earning on recurrent expenditure. It simply means that the rest of 90% or so should go to hell. Unfortunately, the only avenue through which employment could be created which is through the provision of infrastructure for the survival of industries and private enterprise are being shut down.

The infrastructural development is woefully inadequate  because of the level of corruption, embezzlement and aggrandisement inside government. Until we actually tame these monsters called corruption, nepotism, self aggrandisement, there is never going to be a situation whereby there will be infrastructure to encourage the establishment of industries and public enterprise to absorb the teeming youths who are in dire need of employment.

FG through its agencies has provided credit scheme, even recently to reposition SMEs and young entrepreneurs in the country, but a lot of them complaining lack of access to these funds. What should be done for them to access these funds?

The people in government are the thieves in this country. All those purported SME funds are meant for their surrogate companies and not for you and me or for the younger ones at all. First and foremost, how do you ask SMEs for collateral before they could access the funds? How do you get a collateral when you are a youth? So it actually not designed for the youths but for those who are already established. Who are those already established?

the surrogates are the actual players in government are the same people who are recycling these funds among themselves because that is the easiest means they can siphon money from government coffers. So, don’t think that bringing money into SMEs will do it. Forget about giving SMEs loans and all of that, government should create the enabling environment; lick up all the communities by either road, rail or water transportations  for the easier conveyance of goods and commodities and for people to be able to traverse across the land looking for a better opportunities. Provide electricity which is critical.

There are so many people who are self-employed who can actually grow to such an extent that they can employ people. Hair dressers, people with cassava grinding machines, pepper grinding machines etc. which all these need electricity to operate. Once they can have access to electricity their enterprises will grow and there will be greater opportunities for unemployed ones.

Many developed economies of the world, achieved it through well organised SMEs and entrepreneurial process, what is your advice to Buhari’s administration?

The new administration on ground is not different from the previous administration because it is the same dramatic personnel, the same people, the same mind set. What policies  has this government supposed to play that is different from Jonathan’s policies. Today they are still talking about the same SMEs, power that gets embezzled at the end of the day. The only solution is that all these policies they are talking about will go the same way as other policies have failed. There are a lot policies that have worked in other countries because there is no serious level of corruption. But here, nepotism, tribalism are prevailing.

Again, let’s face it, Nigeria is not one country, so trying to pretend as if we are one country is one of the most serious problem we can ever encounter. Pretending to govern Nigeria as one country without recognising the boundaries that actually exist is one of the biggest setback that will keep besetting this country. We must recognise our diversion, if though we crave for every person to work as one. However, the beliefs and tradition of one people are different from tradition and practices of other groups.

You cannot force people in South South to live the same way people from North East live, or people who live in North Central to live in the same way the people in the West live. You recognise that diversity and different opportunities existing in different regions and you must approach those opportunities differently. Trying to centralise it as if we are in Britain where everybody is an Englishman or Frenchman will not work. We must begin to recognise that there are activities you can practice in one region that may not be the one you can practice in different region.

So, centralise it as SME loans, what are you talking about? what are the parametres? centralising it and just coming up with one policy that would go from top to buttom without recognising the differentials, it is bound to fail severally in different areas because the person who is  in position of the policy comes from one of the regions and he sees Nigeria from region.