CANDID ADVICE FOR JOBSEEKERS Candid Advice For Jobseekers Aniebo Nwamu — March 23, 2014 Friends and relations had approached me for advice before they or their children responded to the job vacancies at the Nigeria Immigration Service sometime last year. Those of them that took my advice did not part with their N1, 000 or attend the “interview” of March 15 that turned tragic. The eternal optimists among them ignored my advice, choosing to pray and then try their “luck”. Luckily for all of us, none of these friends and relations died during the stampedes; one or two received injuries but they would not be benefiting from President Jonathan’s automatic employment for the injured. I understand how desperate everyone has become in a nation where bad governance destroys jobs but hardly creates any. But this desperation is at the core of jobseekers’ problem. In the course of rushing to get something, you get duped. 419 fraudsters often exploit this human weakness. They know you are desperate to make money. So they ask you to steal N20, 000 from your father and give them for a magical spell that would give you millions of naira. And they warn you to tell nobody about the deal yet! It is exactly the same game that other fraudsters and their collaborators in the civil service have been playing on the nation’s jobless graduates. Some have approached me for N150, 000 – N250, 000 with which to offer as bribe to some recruiting syndicates in the Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Immigration Service and … I don’t know which is next. I have always warned them to stay away from scams. If it is in the public service, do not respond to any invitation to submit an application, unless a godfather or godmother tells you to apply. Before civil service jobs are advertised, the vacancies are filled with the candidates of governors, ministers, senators, House members, perm secs, directors and traditional rulers. The advertisement is merely to satisfy the civil service rules. When a supposed employer asks you to enclose a cheque or pay 50 kobo cash in the course of submitting an application, be sure that it’s 419. No sincere employer requests money from an applicant; instead, he pays for the applicant’s transportation to and from the venue of an interview and offers tea or lunch. Third, you should study how the job advert has been crafted. Is the candidacy restricted to a few or is it open to all? If it’s an all-comer affair, simply ignore the advert. For three decades, we have been warning of the danger that unemployment poses to the nation. My readers will remember that I have always put the joblessness rate at 70 – 80 per cent and not 23 or 24 per cent bandied by officialdom. The jobseeker should get one thing clear: the politicians and civil servants are too busy stealing that they have no time to think of a solution to the unemployment scourge. The same song they were singing in 1984 is still the same song I hear these days. It will not change. It seems to me that Nigeria has some of the most selfish people on earth. They don’t care about their neighbours. Those who pose as policymakers are only buying time – time to consolidate their position as minister, governor, president or director. Each is after the perks of office: easy money, free lunch, estacode, free overseas treatment, free security, opportunity to be worshipped like a god. They don’t think about the next generation; they think about the next election. The state of young graduates in Nigeria is really precarious. I have always known that we shall reach this crisis point where schools churn out graduates that are not prepared for the workplace. Our colonial masters knew what they were doing. They knew that political independence without economic independence means nothing. And so they encouraged our fathers to study English, Accounting, Sociology, Law and Philosophy in universities. Indeed, they were encouraged to study Education courses so they would pass the same nonsense “knowledge” to the next generation which would pass it to the next. Those who dared to study Engineering, Mathematics, Botany and Pharmacy were limited to learning the theoretical aspects. Post- independence leaders were yet to settle down and think when thugs in military uniform shoved them aside and seized power. The rest is history. I have given this background to enable the jobless graduate understand where he is coming from. What to do then? Graduates should first recognise the worthlessness of their certificates. Since government jobs are no longer there, the only course open to today’s graduate is to start a business on his own. The handicaps for those who choose this course are known: lack of capital (because the banks lend at 30-60 per cent and you must bring your grandfather to prove that he has more money than the loan you are seeking), corruption and lack of electricity. It is better you gather money through the same way you gathered school fees and start a small business. It could be rice (if you live in a place where there is irrigation), chicken, fish, cocoa-yam, pepper, onion or yam farming. The alternative for those who can’t engage in physical labour is to sell their talent to a private person or company that needs it. You don’t have to write a long proposal to get recognised – so long as you are sure of yourself. If you know you have a skill, try and identify those who need it. The internet is a huge marketplace. But, as usual, those who benefit financially from it are in Europe, Asia and America. If we Africans feel ashamed, let us invent something for mankind. Those who like trading can understudy an experienced trader or undergo a short period of apprenticeship with him. Many traders succeed by cheating and lying. People with character may not be comfortable with that. But they can engage in distributorship of goods. The obstacle here may be the lack of a good transportation system. Nonetheless, you can brave the odds –travel 700km on dangerous roads every week or two. With as little as N3m, one can bring in goods from some Asian countries. Nigeria is a consumer nation; they will buy anything. Of course, I know that everyone would jump at any job offer from government agencies like the NNPC, EFCC, SSS or CBN. The average jobseeker should understand that jobs in such “lucrative” agencies are reserved for the insignificant minority that have fathers and mothers in high places. We all can’t be there. I advise the jobseeker not to envy them, however. They are there not because of what they can offer; they have been kept there so they can earn money without working. Do not be lazy like them. Boko Haram, kidnappers and other criminals have been sending a message but our myopic leaders are yet to understand. I offer my sympathies to the families of the dead and the wounded applicants for the NIS job. Those who say that 19 applicants died forget that four of them were pregnant and each had at least one child in the womb. Therefore, at least 23 people perished for nothing. And the reaction of the powers that be has been to offer jobs to members of their families, qualified or not. Even this compensation process may still be rigged.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 01:30:18 +0000
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