It is a forum whereby the Nigerian Unemployed Youths meet to share ideas about the youths and jobs opportunities. Nigeria’s growing unemployment is one of a major concern to many analysts and economists as the figures increasingly suggest dwindling potentials. Official figures from the Bureau of statistics puts this figure at about 20% (about 30million), but this figure still did not include about
40million other Nigerian youths captured in World Bank statistics in 2009.It is therefore not out of place to consider massive employment generation as an issue of a major focus on national development and economic growth plan of the Nigerian government. It is also interesting to note that effective use of labour force is a major contributor to some emerging economies’ recent rapid economic growth, who have averagely single digit unemployment figures. Unfortunately, many Nigerian economists argue from one perspective that employment can only be generated from increased economic activity, but taking a closer look at the beginnings of developed nations like the United States, Canada and Europe, it can be observed that this argument is a bit flawed because economic activity can also be generated from massive employment. The question is how, and at what cost and benefit? It is worthy of note that the current minister of finance, Olusegun Aganga, during his screening at the senate, pointed out as a deficiency the fact that Nigeria is yet to adequately utilize the potentials from its active youth population, though little has been seen from that perspective since his accent to power as minister of Finance, as many critics believe. This aims to suggest ways in which Nigeria’s abundant human capital can be effectively utilized for more efficiency, productivity, and economic development. By implication, it means that if Nigeria’s population is 140 million, then 50% of Nigerians are unemployed, or worse still, at least 71% of Nigerian youths are unemployed. This is particularly disturbing and counterproductive because at least 70% of the population of this country is youths. Viewing this from the perceptive of the recent events in the Middle East where unemployment and poverty among others played a key role in the uprising, one can only conclude that Nigeria’s unemployment poses a threat to its development, security and peaceful coexistence, being that Nigeria is made up of diverse entities from different cultural and religious backgrounds most of whom have shown differences in political, cultural and religious understanding and accommodation emanating from concerns of abuse of power, resource allocation, nepotism, negligence and corruption among others.
