Why You Need To Become Self Employed As A Youth

Youth unemployment has become a vital aspect of the widespread unemployment syndrome facing Nigeria today. With the current global economy situation, which has led to slow economic growth in most European countries and United States of America, the demand for labor has been declining globally, not excluding Nigeria, resulting to high level of urban youth unemployment due to rapidly increasing rate of rural-urban migration.

Since the early eighties, unemployment has assumed an alarming and disturbing rate in Nigeria, with millions of able-bodied persons willing to accept jobs at the minimum pay rates yet unable to find job placements.

The problem of unemployment is becoming too dangerous in Nigeria; youths are being graduated annually from tertiary institutions in mass with little or no plans of engaging them gainfully. According to Nigerian government statistics, youth unemployment in Nigeria is between the range of 60 to 70 percent, and the labor market can only absorb 10 percent of new job entrants. 

The issue of unemployment has been a major problem challenging the lives of the Nigerian youth even before now. This has landed so many Nigerian youths into conditions of frustration, dejection and dependency on immediate and extended family members, friends and mates that also have their own problems to take care of. Every year, about 4.5 million youths enter the labor market without any hope of getting employments for life sustenance. Out of this figure, about 300,000 are graduates of tertiary institutions, who despite their skills and formal education, are left with no option as to how to make ends meet.

Human development experts argue that the high level of unemployment among the Nigerian youths is as a result of inadequate work experience. But the question now is; how does one get job experience when employers will not employ fresh graduates or young people with few years of experience? Leaving the question unanswered, the youths still strive to fulfill their requirements, by subjecting themselves to casualisation and underpaid jobs, so as to get the so called work experience which has become a major requirement for good rewarding jobs.

When these youths finally get the required work experience, after years of unfair working conditions, the issue of age becomes another fence to skip. All these riddles make me to wonder what the government is doing to regulate employment policies in Nigeria.

Besides the issues of work experience and age discrimination, job applicants in Nigeria are also expected to possess multi skills or plurality of talent and capabilities, as a way of positioning themselves ahead of so many others clamoring for the same job vacancy.

When you sit down and analyze this whole scenario, you will agree with me that most employers intentionally play this drama to easily eliminate the unwanted segment of the large pool of available candidates for the advertised positions, which calls for an alternative employment solution for the teeming population of Nigerian youths, and the only reliable alternative solution to this menace can be found within the shores of entrepreneurship and personal development.

Yes I know that when most youths hear the word; ‘entrepreneurship’, their heart skip, their mind run straight to the petty trader in their street, without even considering the diversity of entrepreneurship and its boundless potentials.

I am also aware of the numerous challenges facing aspiring young entrepreneurs in Nigeria today, and I cannot act ignorant, but that’s not the issue, the issue remains that ‘you must survive’, with or without a job.

Sometime ago, I read about a youth who decided to take his own life after six years of graduation and youth service without finding a job, and my heart was broken to the extent that it bled with pity and anger for weeks.

Now, are you a youth out there still searching for a job without any coming forth? Have you given up on finding a job? Or are you presently working in an unfavorable condition with low pay that leaves you with nothing at the end of the month after deducting your transport fares, and other minor expenses? Then hear this: your destiny is in your hands, you can be whatever you want to be tomorrow if you plan your today wisely and implement your plans painstakingly. What do I mean by this? You cannot continue to work like a jerky all your life and still hope for a miracle. You must stand up and challenge your basic instincts.

Working with an employer that pays you less than your input annually will only run you down over time. Some working environments have no future, they are like a dark tunnel; you keep crawling endlessly in pains hoping to see the light that will never show up. Ask yourself: how many heads does my current employer have to have been able to establish this business? Remember, it is not always true that all rich people in Nigeria made their money through politics or corruption, nope, many exist who walked their ways patiently to the ladder of financial prosperity, and you too can do same, how? If you make the right decisions now!

Entrepreneurship, which can also be interchanged with ‘starting your own business’ is not just limited to buying and selling. Entrepreneurship is a broad way with so many adjoining routes, so it is left for you to decide which route to follow based on your desired destination. Limiting yourself to just buying and selling as an entrepreneur is a crime against entrepreneurship. We have infopreneur as another moving branch of entrepreneurship, and we also have the netpreneur.

Like I said earlier, I do understand the challenges most aspiring young entrepreneurs face today in Nigeria. Yes, I am aware that so many youths (graduates and non-graduates) desire to start their own businesses, but they are facing challenges. Before we look into some of the challenges young entrepreneurs face today in Nigeria, may I use this opportunity to pour out my disappointment with so many Nigerian graduates of today? It is so disheartening to know that majority of the Nigerian graduates of today are so engrossed with their paper qualification to the extent that they spend most of their time only searching for where to submit cv and application, while their counterparts that weren’t fortunate enough to pass through the walls of higher institution are busy developing their God-given talents, skills and abilities, and in the process, making positive contributions to the Nigerian economy.

The time has come for Nigerian graduates to start thinking beyond their paper qualifications. Acquiring degrees upon degrees will only make you a better slave, how? The more you acquire more certificate degrees, the more chances you have to secure a lasting job to serve a better slave master (your employer).

Of course, when you have good qualification and skill, your employer wouldn’t want you to go; he would make sure he entices you with all forms of temporary welfare packages to discourage you from seeking for your own financial freedom, and thereby exploiting your business wits to his own greater advantage. It is only in Nigerian scenario where employees loot their employer’s funds, and engage in all sorts of illegal and corrupt practices to get extra income, that you will see an employee acquiring so much money to the extent of competing with his employer. Aside Nigeria, an employee is an employee, while an employer is an employer.

Paper degrees or will I call them certificates have never helped Nigerian economy in any way. Most of the successful businesses we have today in Nigeria are not owned by professors, but by men who saw the need to develop their business potentials, and not men who are engrossed with acquiring paper certificates to work for another man.

Yes, you are a graduate, and so what? Aside your paper qualifications, what else can you offer to the Nigerian economy? Does it mean that if your certificate gets burnt or missing forever that you will go and hang yourself because you cannot survive? Who cares about a certificate that virtually every youth now possess? At a time, Nigerians saw that traveling to abroad (UK, America, Canada, etc) to study assures them of a better job, so almost every Nigerian was busy using their last penny to send their kids and siblings to study abroad to the extent that in every university and colleges in UK, America and Canada, you must see at least 20 Nigerians who came to acquire paper certificate to become better slaves for a better slave master. But now, the table has turned- virtually every Nigerian holds a degree from abroad, now who will hire these people when there is virtually no increase in companies so far?

Now, let me ask you, if everyone of us decides to work for someone without thinking of establishing our own businesses, where will our future children work? Will there even be companies to talk of applying for a job?

To those that are fortunate enough to have secured a job, what have you been doing with your savings- acquiring latest electronic gadgets and wears? Buying the latest cars and cruising around cities, and acting wealthy? Please don’t be fooled, you are not wealthy until you are able to gainfully employ people to work for you. So start now to plan on how to start your own small business even though you are working for someone. Remember, I don’t care about where you are working presently, it may be the richest oil firm in the world, it may be the most popular telecom company, or whichever sector, I do not care, all I care is that you ought to start your own business and employ people. I know your problem; you are clueless on what business to start, if that’s the case, then you can hire people to give you ideas, and you can also bring your head down and study your present environment, there must be a problem there that requires a solution, so offer that solution using people that you would pay and monitor wisely.

Now to the job seekers out there- don’t be deceived, prayers do not give job! Yes, you heard me so well; PRAYERS DO NOT GIVE JOB! Jumping from one church to another in search of a miracle job can hardly help you. Prayer only increases your favor before God, if and only if you abide by the will of God. Remember, you cannot be living in so many sins and still expect to be highly favored by God, nope…God can never be mocked.

If God wants to answer your prayer, it mustn’t be through giving you job only. God has the capability to do so many things for you, so why limit him to just giving job when He can make you the next world icon now? Yes, people know that there is high rate of unemployment in the country, so they capitalize on that to deceive so many youths; they make them to believe that the only way they can secure a job is by sowing ‘miracle job’ seed and by giving bigger offerings out of their empty pockets.

If God works that way, then every Nigerian ought to be working with NNPC, Chevron, Mobil, etc, because that is where majority of Nigerians desire and pray to work. Or are we trying to say that those people working in the aforementioned firms are more prayerful than the uncountable jobless Nigerians? I doubt so. I agree, prayer is the key to so many things in life, but sincerely speaking, prayer doesn’t give job, it only increases your favor before God, and job is nothing before God.

Like I have said several times, I understand the challenges stopping so many youths from starting their own businesses today, and top amongst those challenges is: startup capital. But I am here to tell you that startup capital is not your problem. Remember, you do not need millions to startup a successful business, all you need is a genuine idea. If you have a viable idea, believe me, startup capital can never be a challenge to you, why? Because so many people will be ready to fund your idea to become a successful business, including myself. Years of research and interaction with youths have made me to understand that majority of Nigerian youths (especially the graduate youths) have no ingenuity to startup a business. They only believe in their paper certificate, in applying for job, leaving their talent and creative mindset to lie fallow.

As a graduate youth, you should have an alternative talent or source of livelihood to backup your certificate, to make you stand out. An engineering graduate that knows how to weld perfectly, repair electronics, carry out perfect house wiring, design steel works using computer softwares, etc can hardly look for work, and even if he or she searches for a job and didn’t find, he or she can hardly look for money to startup his or her own business because what he or she has already is a complete mobile workshop.

Put away pride, forget the fact that you are a graduate and bend down- learn a handwork as a backup, learn new skills. Remember, if certificate fails you, handwork can never fail...handwork is classic.

 What am I trying to say in essence? Think beyond your certificate, equip yourself with more special skills, and start now to plan on what business to start come 2013. You have stayed at home enough, enough is enough, crying all night and praying without effort will not help your situation, activate your basic instincts, engage the power of attraction to attract your desire in life, get up now and do something because future will not care if you were able to secure a job or not. Merrry Christmas and a prosperous new year in advance!

Culled from my book: How To Create Wealth From Nothing