THE IGBO GIANT STRIDES AGAINST ALL ODDS
9 years ago
There is no gainsaying the fact that joblessness or call it unemployment is usually the nightmare of most graduates across the globe. In a bid to disentangle oneself from the biting grips of this ugly situation, most jobless folks have adopted different approaches from the conventional to the radical. Here are three pictures of three jobless folks in three different climes, one here in Nigeria, the other in Tunisia and another in UK.
In the first picture we can see an unemployed graduate of Mechanical Engineering from Ekiti State University, Mr. Sunday Omotayo, being pleaded with by a police officer to get up after he allegedly jumped out of a speeding Toyota Hiace expecting to be crushed by oncoming vehicles.
According to him: “There is no state that I have not gone to in search of a job in the past 10 years. I came to Akwa Ibom because this is my last hope because of the stories of Governor Godswill Akpabio and his uncommon transformation. I came with the hope that with what is going on in the state, getting a job would be easy so that I can begin to be a man. But since I came, I discovered that many people from Akwa Ibom are also crying because of poverty and joblessness.”
The riots and demonstrations that have swept through Tunisia during the past 10 days also began with a small incident.
Rioting followed and security forces sealed off the town. On Wednesday, another jobless young man in Sidi Bouzid climbed an electricity pole, shouted "no for misery, no for unemployment", then touched the wires and electrocuted himself. The reactions to these events in Tunisia quickly spiralled out of control and snowballed into the Arab Spring that Swept away Muommar Gaddafi & Hosni Mubarrack of Libya and Egypt from power.
For Mr Sunday and Mohamed Bouazizi as well as Sidi Bouzid , hopelessness had set in after years of joblessness and hence their choice to express their frustration in the manner they did. But that was not obviously the case with Alfred, who graduated in May and have been applying for jobs ever since. Though Alfred has been finding it very difficult at the moment, one morning however, Alfred stood at the entrance to a busy station holding a sign that read: 'Marketing graduate (BA Hons 2:1 Coventry Uni) Ask for CV.'
Alfred's direct approach received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential positions. According to him, he realised that there are thousands of students out there using the same old methods of applying for jobs on-line and through recruitment agencies and so I thought I'd try something different.
'I got up early and went to the station he said. At first people just looked at me but after about 10 minutes people starting stopping and talking. They said they'd never seen anything like it before and were really impressed.Alfred's direct approach received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential positions. According to him, he realised that there are thousands of students out there using the same old methods of applying for jobs on-line and through recruitment agencies and so I thought I'd try something different.
As I write, another batch of corpers have just left the orientation camp. For some of these corpers, especially those of them that will come to terms with the reality inherent in the distorted acronym of NYSC as "Now Your Suffering Continues"; the morale lesson from these stories is for them to confront the situations the find themselves with approaches that are not only acceptable to the climes they find themselves but approaches that wont be counter-productive.
If out of frustration, a Nigerian graduate decides to tow the line of the Tunisian duo of Mohamed Bouazizi as well as Sidi Bouzid both of whom took their lives in order to draw attention to their plights, that fellow can be rest assured of a double jeopardy in the sense that he or she wont only have failed to better his lot or that of others but will also be dismissed as an outright failure because our society does not approve of such suicidal missions. Thank goodness that Mr. Sunday Omotayo's suicidal mission was not successful but even if he had been crushed by incoming vehicles as he had wished, he would just be dismissed as a lazy man and thus confined to the ash bin of history.
Alfred's direct approach in UK may have received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential job offers but the success of such approach will be minimal here in Nigeria. The reason being that the jobs are not just there. What we need is a new orientation towards job creation or self employment. While this may be a hard nut to sell, it surely remains the best option for any graduate that would not like to be frustrated.
If out of frustration, a Nigerian graduate decides to tow the line of the Tunisian duo of Mohamed Bouazizi as well as Sidi Bouzid both of whom took their lives in order to draw attention to their plights, that fellow can be rest assured of a double jeopardy in the sense that he or she wont only have failed to better his lot or that of others but will also be dismissed as an outright failure because our society does not approve of such suicidal missions. Thank goodness that Mr. Sunday Omotayo's suicidal mission was not successful but even if he had been crushed by incoming vehicles as he had wished, he would just be dismissed as a lazy man and thus confined to the ash bin of history.
Alfred's direct approach in UK may have received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential job offers but the success of such approach will be minimal here in Nigeria. The reason being that the jobs are not just there. What we need is a new orientation towards job creation or self employment. While this may be a hard nut to sell, it surely remains the best option for any graduate that would not like to be frustrated.
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