Learn from fig tree: South Africa and post-Zuma imprisonment
By Ehizuelen Franklin Imafidon
Sir: Unemployment is a ticking time bomb. What is currently happening in South Africa in the guise of protest reveals the hypocrisy of the South African government that has hitherto made the rest of the world believe that all is well and rosy. The wholesale looting shows that a better part of the population is hungry, destitute and unemployed. It also reveals the crass disorientation of her population and the high crime rate of that society which of course is still a secondary consequence of unemployment.
As it is happening in South Africa today, the Nigerian government should prepare for its day. This is not a case of being a prophet of doom; it is a reality. History is a lazy servant; it repeats itself when historical actors and influencers go to sleep.
The minister of labour, Dr Chris Ngige was recently quoted to have said that “Nigeria is over 200 million and of that population, 60 per cent are youths who need employment; unfortunately, only 10 per cent have jobs and many are unemployable”.
Put this side by side with the records of the National Bureau of statistics that 33 per cent of Nigerians are unemployed, that is about 23 million youths. This is not to talk of the uncaptured number of underemployed youths who wake up every day angry, frustrated and unsatisfied and ready to be used to subvert the process of economic or political growth.
The truth be told, we have 50 per cent out of our 200 million who are ready to replicate the same level of violence, anger and barbarism that we see on the streets of South Africa today. Make no mistake about it, it is not a question of civility, culture or clime. It is rather sociological; it is happening in South Africa; it can also happen in Nigeria if we decide to do nothing about our idle minds. It is just that we don’t know when.
Unemployment is a primary prognosis of a social crisis in a society where virile labour is wasted. It is the nature of youth to exert strength in labour wherein he/she derives satisfaction and dignity. Work is the part of the process of life and when that process is truncated because of lack of planning, opportunity and government’s ineptitude, the fallow strength resorts to expression in whatever available means to find its voice.
The sex slave menace, teen bride, child soldiers, street vagrants, bandits and suicide bombers are the idle minds of yesterday that have been refused employment opportunities. We have refused to engage them; they will soon engage themselves in primitive capital wealth accumulation. It is just simple economics.
It is not magic that we have a roof tearing-unemployment statistic today. It would have even been worse if not for the dogged entrepreneurial spirit of the Nigerian youth unlike their South African counterparts. Our remedy has been the social media which has given succour to about 14.7 million youths who do business on various social media platforms.
There is no doubt that the economy is in a state of limbo or maybe inertia with free fall and shrinking of foreign direct investment, thanks to insecurity in almost every part of Nigeria. The president’s unpredictable body language and bad economic policies, policies that didn’t work in 1983 can’t work in 2021.
However, let me state emphatically that the economy does not grow by foreign direct investment alone, but also by the stimulation of the local economy through the government’s liberal support to the private sector, security, infrastructural development and tax reductions. Unfortunately, the reverse has been the case.
We must either make efforts to grow the economy or prepare for the South African style mayhem when the unemployed youths wake up. While they sleep, let’s learn from the fig tree.
Ehizuelen Franklin Imafidon, United Kingdom.
