Unemployment may explode into crisis, Obasanjo warns

Ex-president, AU experts seek action on agric, manufacturing

UNLESS the high rate of youth unemployment in the country is urgently checked, it may soon trigger a serious crisis in the polity, according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Describing the country as sitting on “a keg of gun-powder” over unemployment, Obasanjo said that there was the need to develop commercial agriculture to check the crisis of joblessness.

Also Thursday, experts from critical arms of African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and their developing partners dissected the state of industrialisation in Africa and other emerging economies.

They suggested that it was only through critical investment in manufacturing that unemployment, unequalled growth and poverty could be tackled and the key objectives of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) achieved.

Delivering the yearly lecture of the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) in Ilorin, Obasanjo lamented how the little gains his administration made in 1979 were almost eroded due to bad policies on agriculture until his return to power in 1999.

He said: “We are sitting on the keg of gun-powder in this country due to the problems of unemployment of our youths. We have almost 150 universities now in the country turning out these young Nigerians but without job opportunities for them. ARMTI has a bigger role to play here. We are not saying agriculture will make you a billionaire, in fact if you want to be one, don’t go into agric. Nevertheless, if we practise agriculture well, it will make you comfortable.”

Obasanjo recalled that he had to enrol at Moore Plantation Ibadan after relinquishing powers to a democratically-elected government in 1979 to learn modern techniques in agriculture before venturing into large-scale farming.

He added: “For sometime after 1979 when almost all gains in agriculture progress in Nigeria seemed to have been destroyed through indiscriminate importation and dumping into Nigeria, I was skeptical if we could ever make it in the area of agriculture.

“But the progress we made between 2003 and 2007 when Nigeria grew its agricultural production by an average of seven per cent per annum enhanced my optimism and enthusiasm. For instance, cocoa production increased from 150,000 metric tonnes to 400,000 metric tonnes; cassava production from 30 million metric tonnes to 50 million metric tonnes.”

Source:guardian