The challenges and task of managing this global
recession has not been easy at all. The Western
nations appear to be running out of ideas on how to
jump start their economies. Countries of the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) have committed more than $3.5
trillion dollars to help their banks rebuild their
asset base and kick start lending again. The
responses from these huge government
bailouts have been disappointing. The world has
never witnessed a recession of this magnitude.
Warren Buffett (the richest person in the world
during the first half of 2008 according to Forbes)
described the current crisis as an economic "Pearl
Harbour" He predicted that the US economy will be in
shambles throughout 2009.
Quoting Skynews, the world's richest people have
watched nearly a quarter of their wealth go in the
last 12 months. "In a February video message to his
millions of supporters, US President Barack
Obama told them that US had lost 3.6 million jobs
since the recession began. But this is dwarfed by
the worries of the International Labour Organization
(ILO) which predicted in its annual publication,
Global Employment Trends, that eighteen to
fifty million workers will lose their jobs this year
alone and two hundred million are likely to be
thrown into extreme poverty" (The World Today, March
2009, Volume 65 Number 3 Page 5).The survey
carried out by the Indian Labour Ministry indicated
that about 500,000 people have lost their jobs in
just three months in 11 sectors of the economy. The
Federation of Indian Export Industries have raised
alarm that 10 million jobs are likely to be lost in
the months ahead. China has also lost similar jobs
and about 68,000 factories had closed in their
costal provinces as at mid October 2008. The case of
Japan appears to be worse than that of the United
States and the European Union. Japan has suffered an
immense economic recession due mainly to her high
exposure to the slump in global car manufacturing,
electronics, and investment equipment. "Russia has
been hit hard by the global crisis, with the stock
market down almost 80% from its peak, and the rouble
sliding fast. Russia's top 10 billionaires alone
lost an estimated $150 billion last year" (The
Guardian newspapers of UK, Tuesday 3 March 2009,
page 15). In the UK, a job will be lost every 25
seconds. Experts have also warned that about 320,000
jobs will be lost in the next three months as the
recession hits harder.
I wrote extensively on the global economic crisis
which I titled; Capturing The Casualties From The
Global Credit Crunches. (Published on Sunday, 14th
December 2008 on http://briefsfromakuta.blogspot.com).
The global economy has deteriorated more, since my
article was first published. "The International
Monetary Fund has identified 26 countries, half in
sub-Sahara Africa, that are particularly vulnerable
to the crisis. Central and Eastern European
economies are estimated to face a financing gap of
$100 billion in 2009. And the World Bank estimates
that 129 developing countries are facing a financing
shortfall of between $270 and $700bn" (The Guardian
newspapers of UK, Tuesday 10 March 2009, page 31)
Since the world is a global village, Nigeria
cannot escape from the global recession. Nigeria
will be affected in some many ways. This is because
Nigeria has needs to be met by the international
community. There will be decreases in oil revenue
owning to the problems in the Western economies. We
will be affected mostly by the global withdrawal of
credit. Foreign loans and international
developmental assistances will surely reduce.
International donors to Non governmental
Organisations (NGO's) and charity organization like
Red Cross etc will shrink. Nigerian banks are most
likely going to find it difficult to source foreign
loans from their overseas partner banks. There would
be decreases in money remitted from Nigerians in
Diaspora. Nigerians in Diaspora remit home more than
$5 million dollars each year. This is used for
various projects at home. This amount will most
likely go down. The unemployment situation in
Nigeria will be worsened by the above factors. I
will agree with the Nigerian Finance Minister of
state, Mr Remi Babalola who advised state
governments in Nigeria to be prudent with their
resources and look beyond the federation
account for funds to execute their programmes. His
advise was reported by the Guardian newspaper of
Friday March 6 2009 online version. But I seriously
doubt if the federal, state and local governments in
Nigeria can ever be prudent
since there is still high level corruption in all
tiers of government. Besides we still have the
official secret act. No transparency on the part of
government businesses and no credibility. Nigerians
do not have access to government documents. No
freedom of information act. Therefore the question
of prudence will be difficult to achieve.
With the above factors, Nigerians should embrace
themselves for the worse case scenarios arising from
the global recession. Having said the above, I will
ask the government both at the federal and state
levels
to make some policy changes in our educational
sector. The change am propounding is to make skills
acquisition a compulsory subject/course in the
primary, secondary, tertiary and university levels.
If English Language, mathematics, and Gss courses
are compulsory in secondary schools and
universities, then I see no reason why skills
acquisition should not be made compulsory. The idea
will be to produce graduates
with skills. Skilled people don't need to search for
jobs like unskilled people. Low level job creation
is needed to reduce unemployment in Nigeria. Job
creation is highly needed this period of global
economic recession.
I will also wish to appeal to private educational
operators to make skills acquisition a compulsory
part of their academic curricular. With measures
like this in place, schools in Nigerian will be
graduating people with both academic qualifications
and skills. Finally I will also appeal to the
unemployed people to consider
volunteering where they can acquire skill know how.
This appeal also extends to various skilled
people, workshop owners etc to train the unemployed
people who cannot afford to pay for the cost
of training. Let there be elements of humanitarian
assistance in combating unemployment in Nigeria. We
need jobs creation to combat the global economic
down turn. May God bless Nigeria.
Chinedu Vincent Akuta
An activist and leader of "Support Option A4 Group"
Leicester-UK
akutachinedu@yahoo.com
http://briefsfromakuta.blogspot.com/
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