Class suicidal jobs’ – Nigerian graduates speak amid high unemployment rate
The level of unemployment in Nigeria has forced certain classes of people to take up jobs that they, ordinarily, would not even contemplate, let alone take. This is what the political scientist would refer to as class suicide.
In those golden eras in Nigeria, white collar jobs were exclusively reserved for the university graduates. There were enough white collar jobs for the university and polytechnic graduates in Nigeria. But today, the story has changed.
According to a 2023 report, Nigeria’s graduate unemployment rate was estimated at eight percent for those with post-secondary education. This simply means that a significant number of graduates are struggling to find employment opportunities.
Another report equally noted that while the overall national unemployment rate is reported as 5.3 percent in the first quarter of 2024, youth unemployment, including those with upper secondary education, remained higher than the national average at 8.5 percent. This situation has led to mass class suicide.
The development also lends credence to Martin Luther King Junior’s importunation that, “If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk. If you can’t walk, then crawl; but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
Jobs that were meant for school drop-outs or those who never even had any form of formal education, primary or secondary, are now hot cakes for the university and polytechnic graduates.
In the past couple of years in Nigeria, it would be like a taboo for a graduate to take up such jobs as motorcycle riding or cab driving because those were jobs meant for school drop-outs or those who never attended any school at all. Graduates were meant to sit in air-conditioned offices. No graduate worth his or her onions would ever take up such jobs.
Today, the table has turned and such jobs have been overtaken by graduates with second and even third degrees. Apart from ‘Okada or Keke’ riding, many graduates are slugging it out in taxi driving, commercial bus driving, house cleaning and laundry services, generator repairs, restaurant operators, car wash services, estate agency services and petty trading among others.
Idowu Adeniyi, a doctorate degree holder (PhD) is a generator repairer, although he started doing the job after his first degree in philosophy.
Ho got both his master’s and doctorate degrees as a generator repairer. A native of Isale Osi, now Isale Oro in Ibadan South West, Oyo State, Adeniyi shares his experience with SOCIETY WATCH.
He said: “I studied philosophy in my first degree from the University of Ibadan in 2007 and my second degree in Sociology from the same university in 2011.”
