![[OPINION] Why Buhari Should Stop the Probes](https://nairametrics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Buhari-Confused.jpg)
Here I am trying not to get angry. The federal Government is proposing to give the unemployed youths N5,000 monthly allowance as what. I don’t understand, is it to refund the fees they paid in school or to pay for the rents in their morbid rooms or is it to cover their wedding expenses. Shey I thought we were broke and could not even pay the salaries and entitlements of just 36 Ministers so where are we going to get the funds to execute this pipe dream.
If we have run out of ideas why can’t we just go and beg Britain to come and recolonize us. I have always said that this Government only prepared for the elections and had no effective plan for governance. It is a Government of social critics, career opposition players hence the tottering footsteps in Government. Even if they do not have the ideas can’t they borrow from others and implement.
When America was faced with severe challenges during the Great Depression, the government went into an expansive mode to jump-start the economy creating jobs especially in construction and infrastructural developments issuing debt notes with long repayment tenors guaranteed by the Government which later became means of exchange to pay for the projects. So in one fell swoop, they created jobs, reflated the economy and built infrastructure which In turn oiled the rebirth.
N5,000 won’t even last these jobless youths for a day and would compound their frustrations and push them more into crime and other avarice. This matter of the economy is not so difficult, even from where I am sitting. With the deep pool of skilled labor which is becoming cheaper by the day, with the huge market potentials, huge arable land, megawatts in Natural resources, the job is already done. The Government just has to step back and allow the Private Sector take control while they provide security, manage exchange control and provide enabling laws that will protect industry.
The solution to mass unemployment is not N5,000. Even the much maligned Jonathan administration had set up a body that reviewed business plans that could employ at least ten Nigerians per promoter and gave the very best a minimum of N5m. The multiplier effect on the economy to the few they gave the grants to had the desired impact. This N5,000 policy would only impoverish us the more , turn us into a beggarly nation and much more importantly will not be sustainable If implemented it would be the height of wastage.
The Bank of Industry should be empowered, refocused to face the SMEs. The SMEs have the potentials of creating jobs. See firms like Slot which has in its employ thousands of Nigerians both directly and indirectly. What would N5,000 do to the promoter if he had been given the said sum as an unemployed youth when he started.
It’s looking like this Government after its much vaunted war against corruption is bereft of ideas and that is what you get In a government filled with gerontocrats lacking in vision but with a strong need to perpetuate itself in power.
Read Richard Branson’s frustration with doing business in Nigeria. He cried that even after making over $3b for the government, he was buffeted by red tape and request for bribes. He has sacked all his Nigerian crew swelling the unemployment pool and getting ready to withdraw from Nigeria. So if the much incorruptible government can’t sweep away these miscreants who frustrate genuine business with avarice then we are doomed.
Baba, Abeg keep your N5,000 you will need all the cash you can get in four years during the reelection if you continue like this. I tell you. Mark my words.
The above article is an op-ed and does not necessarily represent the opinion of Nairametrics. You can send in your opinion articles by emailing articles@nairametrics.com or info@nairametrics.com
