Embers Of The Society

Unemployment is a condition in which manpower skills are unutilised due to insufficient jobs. It has a cousin called underemployment. To expatiate my points and substantiate my arguments I present this analogy:

A young man, Owoyemi Olayemi Owolabi who had a strong passion for fishing, woke up one beautiful, blissful morning and decided to build a boat and fishing net. He worked day and night to execute this project with uncommon intelligence, brilliance and panache. The scorching sun beat and bit him and of course he bled, not blood but sweat. The rain came in torrents, flogging and punching; feverish conditions with cold, headache agitations dealt him various blows – bitter but not fatal blows. Even the punch of Mike Tyson in his heyday would change colour from brown to green in envy, yet he didn't give up.

He bore his cross stoically. His saw lacerated his body countless times he bled profusely endless times. Sawdust plagued his eye and almost blinded him. But God knows that he wasn't Stevie Wonder so he may not have the strength and courage to mount and surmount the mountain of blindness so He spared him. His lungs bolted like Usain Bolt and narrowly escaped being infected with silicosis. His hammer never spared him either; his skin even received various injections from nails and needles yet his tenacity and courageous disposition forged him on.

After years of hard labour, he finally completed his boat and fishing accessories. His face beamed with delight and he heaved a sigh of relieve, “Hurray!” he jumped and screamed excitedly.

The next day with expectations, he carried his boat to a river only to discover it had dried up. He went to another but observed that the river had no fish. The same story repeated itself many times before he found a small river with thousands of boats and fishermen. The river had very small and few fish. Therefore, many caught nothing, some caught few and very few caught some.

With blood-shot eyes, imprisoned mind, bitter heart and failing strength, he looked up into the sky, shook his head, scratched his chin and shouted, “Alas, what a pity!”

What a pitiful situation. Heavens, oh heavens!
If we ponder over the following names and what the bearers accomplished we might begin to think that names attract special positions related to them. For instance Uhuru Kenyatta is the president of Kenya; Roberto Mancini was the manager of Man City (Manchester City) football club, late Indira Gandhi was once the prime minister of India; Arsene Wenger is the manager of Arsenal football club and Prof. Adeyemi is the provost of Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo state.

On this premise, many might have believed that Owoyemi Owolabi would make it easily and become wealthy and famous in life. He might have thought of that and worked towards it. If after many years he is still jobless and penniless he is likely to be ashamed of himself because of his name and may find it difficult to voice it out in public. Most especially if co-tenants, enemies, rivals and even family, friends and relatives begin to tease him and the daring ones amongst them changed his name to hilarious and ridiculous names. Names like Owolabi Owotisalo, Iseedeji and the like.

He walked the length and breadth of our major streets in search of nonexistent jobs so much so that the streets planned to sue him for abuse. His socks had gaping holes that could accommodate okete (pouched rats); stale sweat makes him stink worse than skunk. Yet his tummy was empty and rumbling in protest. Money had divorced his pocket a long time ago and his clothes were older than Methuselah. This depicts the pathetic alas sorry condition of many unemployed graduates in Nigeria.

Owoyemi Owolabi might eventually dislike himself, detest his family and hate his society. An admixture of anger and disappointment would imprison the mind and depression would ensnare the senses. If he begins to see himself as worthless and hopeless he would lose his self-esteem and therefore begins to nurse the idea of crime. He would blame everybody but himself for his predicament. In the long run he might become a fraudster, scammer, kidnapper or armed-robber.

At this stage, even the bark of Rot, the sight of handcuffs and cops, the thought of prison, of shame and humiliation may not change his orientation, outlook or attitude.

The young, promising man with abilities but no job-opportunity has become a liability to his society. A star that couldn't glitter; an angel that couldn't fly. How grievous! Very heinous!

Unemployment is lower in advanced economies like the US, China, Japan, Germany and the like but a major problem in developing countries. It simply means there are few jobs available to millions of job seekers, which directly lead to suffocating competition amongst job applicants. In spite of this, nepotism and cronyism prevent the best brains from getting jobs. If mediocre saturate the labour market, the result is always catastrophic. When unemployed persons suffer unemployment for long, they are forced to take up jobs that do not utilise their skills or talents – that is underemployment.

An industrialised economy has legions of service and manufacturing industries, which means many jobs are available and many more are being created but that is not the case with developing economies. Unemployment can lead to crime, mental stress … and the vicious cycle is delivered of.

Thank you very much!
Olayemi Ogunojo: 0806 394 3590.