Unskilled Young Population Bane of Nigeria’s Unemployment Crisis

Oluchi Chibuzor

As the future of work continues to go digital and the Nigerian youth unemployment rate remains at 53.40 percent, unskilled technological young demographic population has been identified as bane to the rising unemployed people in the country.

In view of this, the need for the country to train its youthful workforce on emerging skills that will be ready to attract foreign investment remains a remedy to unemployment challenges facing the country.

To this end, the Senator Abiru Innovation Lab (SAIL), a digital innovation pilot programme has entered into partnership with Co-Creation Hub in an effort that is aimed to transform Ikorodu a community in Lagos state to a software engineering valley in the country.

The partnership which is coming at the time the country is witnessing massive talent drain in the digital space, is geared towards providing a solid foundation for youths to get dignified jobs, build businesses that will scale to employ hundreds of unemployed people and develop solutions that will solve the myriad of challenges facing the country.

Speaking at an interactive session with the maiden group of SAIL programme who are on six month incubation training on software engineering,  the Chairman, Senate Committee on Industries, Senator Adetokunbo Abiru, said he resisted the temptation of replicating ICT centers that abound all around without really addressing the dearth in digital and technology skills. 

He stressed that in line with the future of work in the fourth industrial revolution personally scouted for the best institution with proven track records in training and placements of tech talents for the programme.

For the co-founder, Co-Creation Hub, Olatunbosun Tijani, the world is waiting for a software engineer who can deliver and meet employers’ job requirements.

He opined that it remains the best avenue to lift many out of unemployment as the country can leverage the future of work to attract huge inflows into the country.

Tijani, noted that those, who are not digitally inclined would be disadvantaged seeking jobs in the new era of digital innovation.

He however challenged the female participants to ensure they are more successful in their journey as a software engineer in order to counter people’s opinion that engineering is not for women.

“The world is going digital and with the skills you have acquired in this hub, if you dig deeper into yourself through learning more without doubt all of you will not regret joining this training. From my experience in tech, it is not productive alone when we do not have more women in tech as they play a critical role in the digital economy.

“I want to challenge all the seven women that what you are doing here is not for yourselves it goes beyond but to inspire many other women that believe they can be part of engineering, “he added.