Re-Contextualizing Unemployment and National Security in Nigeria

Abstract

Unemployment is largely blamed for the intractable security challenges in Nigeria. More worrisome is that population growth adds 4.5 million youths into the labour market every year that largely begs for the public sector attention as presently conceptualized. Previous studies have focused on national job creation to manage employment challenges. This study argues on the contrary and sues for re-conceptualization of the concept of unemployment. The problem is that unemployment is major buzzword for assessing government in Nigeria. Unless re-conceptualized, unemployment will continue to pose serious challenges to national security. A number of strategies are highlighted to contain the challenges.

Full text

Journal of Sustainable Development; Vol. 8, No. 6; 2015
ISSN 1913-9063 E-ISSN 1913-9071
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
231
Re-Contextualizing Unemployment and National Security in Nigeria
Hyacinth N. Iwu1
1 Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko,
Nigeria
Correspondence: Hyacinth N. Iwu, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Adekunle Ajasin
University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria. Tel: 234-70-6154-6003. E-mail: hymanfrantz@yahoo.com
Received: December 19, 2014 Accepted: March 10, 2015 Online Published: July 29, 2015
doi:10.5539/jsd.v8n6p231 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/jsd.v8n6p231
Abstract
Unemployment is largely blamed for the intractable security challenges in Nigeria. More worrisome is that
population growth adds 4.5 million youths into the labour market every year that largely begs for the public
sector attention as presently conceptualized. Previous studies have focused on national job creation to manage
employment challenges. This study argues on the contrary and sues for re-conceptualization of the concept of
unemployment. The problem is that unemployment is major buzzword for assessing government in Nigeria.
Unless re-conceptualized, unemployment will continue to pose serious challenges to national security. A number
of strategies are highlighted to contain the challenges.
Keywords: unemployment, national security, human resources, employment, entrepreneurship
1. Background
There is need to link unemployment to the matrix of national security in order to find explanatory framework for
this study. Burgess (2008:60) posited that despite the fact that fears, anxiety, danger and doubt are fundamental
social and individual experiences; the scholarly study of security has fundamentally been limited to the field of
international studies, associated primarily with the status of nation-state in relation to each other. McNamara
(1968:149) who posited that security is development and without development there can be no security further
reinforces the nexus between unemployment and insecurity.
This paper departs from the focus of earlier works on Nigeria that largely rest on traditional conception of
national security such as Ekoko and Vogt (1990); Jonah (2008); Isa (2007) and Hutchful (2004). However, it is
important to acknowledge that some works that tend to move away from traditional approach to the study of
national security in Nigeria such as Nnoli (2006); Pogoson (2013); Nwolise (2012) and Abolurin (ed) (2011),
focused on other issues and not on establishing a nexus between population growth, unemployment and national
security. At the global context, Burgess (2008:60) captured a wide range of burgeoning literature on national
security which revisited the traditional cold war notion of security that see the state as both the object of security
and the primary provider of security as shown by Aggestam and Hyde-Price (2000); Alkire (2003); Baldwin
(1995, 1997); Booth (2005b); Brown (1997); Buzan (1991a, 1991b); Dalby (1997, 2000); Der Derian (1993);
Dillon (1996); Huysmans (1998); Kaldor (2000); Lipschutz (1995); Rothchild (1995); Tickner (1995); Waever
(1997, 2000); Williams (1994) and Wyn Jones (1999). These works show a general consensus among both
scholars and practitioners that a wide range of security threats, both new and traditional, confronts states,
individuals and societies. However, the stance of this present work is to show that the challenge to human
insecurity in Nigeria emanates from the state of poverty, which is largely caused by overdependence on
government institutions to provide employment. This study re-contextualizes, examines unemployment problem,
interrogates nexus between unemployment and national security and highlights how to contain the challenges.
2. Re-contextualizing Unemployment
We can assume that before now joblessness was understood as a personal problem. The assumption is based on
the fact that prior to exploitation of oil in commercial quantity in Oloibiri in 1956 (Ogunlowo 2008:48-120),
agriculture provided the engine of employment both formally and informally to every prospective individual
who want to work in that sector in Nigeria. Staying without job in any sense was certainly regarded as bad luck
for anyone who had no physical deformities. With the emergence of oil (extractive industry) and elaborate (not
robust) bureaucracy, employment in the non-agricultural sector gained momentum.

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International Labor organization (ILO) defined unemployment as numbers of the economically active population
who are without work but available for and seeking work, including people who have lost their jobs and those
who have voluntarily left work (World Bank, 1998: 63). No doubt youth employment has been a catchword for
commentators on political issues but there is need to re-contextualize employment and unemployment.
Employment tells us something about service and pay. On this premise employment is usually associated with
someone working for, and being paid for the service rendered. Employment loses its meaning from the common
usage when an individual is engaged in personal work. He/she hardly perceive it as providing service for the
recipient of his/her products, and money paid for the products as wages, earnings, income or salary. This is what
this study refers to as misconception of employment. Its narrow definition only links it to an ‘out-door’ work and
wages received in that regard. Unemployment on the other hand refers to being without a job; job loss; idleness;
redundancy; joblessness. There is need to examine if there are insufficient jobs in Nigeria. Unemployment are
constantly used by political commentators to mean that the ‘out-door’ person, organization or government has
failed to provide or give job to someone, therefore, denying the person the opportunity to receive pay, salary,
income,, earnings, or wages. When employment is narrowly defined in relation to someone being paid by the
out-door-person especially government, we have many unemployed people who constitutes the army of the
unemployed. This is what I also refer to as misconception of unemployment. Decent Work Country Programme
2012-2015, November 2011 draft, argued that Nigeria has had a decade of jobless growth given that years of
economic growth has not translated to more wage employment opportunities and poverty alleviation. Narrow
conception of employment in relation to government was prevalent in United States (US) for over 150 years
despite the supposed liberal orientation of American culture. Writing about labour legislation from its inception
Orren (1991) posited that US defined all able-bodied individuals without independent wealth as workers who
could be subject to criminal charges for not selling their labour in the marketplace. This notion subsisted until
well into twentieth century. We strongly argue that it is erroneous for any scholar or individual to hold the notion
in Nigeria. US can experiment such because it has the indigenous technological base for its industrial growth and
self restrained birth control unlike Nigeria that lack such creativity and grappling with unrestrained fertility rate
that produces more population than its labour market can accommodate. This study therefore argue that
unemployment can be said to be present when an individual refuses to engage in any work that provides him/her
a means of living either of his/her own or that of outsider whether public or private. And employment can be said
to be present when an individual engages in any work that provides him/her a means of living either of his/her
own or that of outsider whether public or private.
3. Unemployment and Employment Prognosis
Nigeria government bought the idea of responsibility for job creation and in 2003 created National Economic
Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) as one of the reform policy entrusted with the responsibility
to establish, supervise small and medium term scale enterprise development agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and
National Agency for Poverty Eradication Project (NAPEP) (Amadi and Ogwo 2004, Sheidu 2004). NEEDS
noted that the economy had experienced growth without commensurable increase in job opportunities. Although
the economy recorded an average of 9.8 percent of GDP growth per annum between 2002 and 2010, the official
unemployment rate for the working age population ranged between 12 and 15 percent between 2002 and 2007.
Poverty has been exacerbated by the persistently high unemployment levels. Female unemployment rate show
12-14 percent, higher than male 10-12 percent (Federal Republic of Nigeria 2009). Youth unemployment rates
are twice as high as the national unemployment rate which stands at 19%. With the official rate of
unemployment of 19.7 percent and more than 71 million people in abject poverty, Nigeria is hardly on track to
meet the millennium development goal (MDGs), particularly as it targets reduction of extreme poverty and
hunger (African Development Bank 2010). Okonjo-Iweala and Osafo-Kwaako (2007:16) noted the effort by
government under the military rule to provide employment as thus:
Rapid public sector recruitment under military administration resulted in an oversized and under
skilled work force in which employees often did not have the appropriate technical skills needed
for their assignment. For example, about 70 percent of workers in the Ministry of Finance were
low level staff clerks, cleaners with secondary education or equivalent.
However, the figure below shows the population figures in relation to unemployment in Nigeria from
1985-2011:

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0
5
10
15
20
25
86 88 90 92 94 96 98 00 02 04 06 08 10
POP UNEM
Figure 1. Unemployment and population growth rate in Nigeria 1985-2011
Source: the data used to produce this figure by the author is from The National Bureau of Statistics 2010.
Unemployment and population growth are among the economic challenges confronting developing economies
like Nigeria. This trend will continue as government takes the sole responsibility of employment. Posing more
threat as Nigeria has 14.4 million unemployed graduates which excludes those with secondary school certificates
eligible to seek employment in the labour market. This complexity reflects in the works of Edgar (1974:10) and
Carson, Thomas and Hecht (2002: 110-129). Edgar distinguished among the five following forms of
underutilization of labour:
1) Open unemployment. Both voluntary (people who chose not to work even when they could qualify, implying
some means of support other than employment) and involuntary.
2) Underemployment. Those working less (daily, weekly, or seasonally) than they would like to work.
3) The visibly active but underutilized. Those who would not normally be classified as either unemployed or
underemployed by the above definition, but who in fact have found alternative means of ‘marking time’ referred
to as disguised underemployment.
4) Hidden unemployment. Those who are engaged in ‘second choice’ non-employment activities, perhaps
notably education and household chores, primarily because job opportunities at other levels are not available
5) The prematurely retired. This phenomenon is especially apparent, and steadily growing in the civil service. In
many countries retirement ages are falling at the same time that longevity is increasing. Premature retirement
serves as a means of creating promotion opportunities for some of the large numbers pressing up from below.
The analyses of the above conjectures show the complexity of unemployment. Arguably those people who
engage in part-time teaching, house boys and gardeners, and those who teach in most private nursery, primary
and secondary schools but who are graduates can be grouped into hidden unemployment as shown above. The
table below Shows unemployment rate for each State in Nigeria:

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Table 1. Unemployment rates at the state level in Nigeria 2007-2011
STATE 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Abia (S) 25.1 11.9 14.5 22.8 11.2
Adamawa ■ 21.5 13.5 29.4 24.6 33.8
Akwa-Ibom 18.0 11.1 34.1 27.7 18.4
Anambra 14.9 7.3 16.8 10.8 12.2
Bauchi ■ 20.5 6.9 37.2 27 41.4
Bayelsa 21.9 67.4 41.5 27.4 23.9
Benue ■ 7.9 7.8 8.5 6 14.2
Borno ■ 12.5 11.8 27.7 26.7 29.1
Cross-Rive
r
32.8 18.9 14.3 27.9 18.2
Delta 22.9 11. 5 18.4 27.9 27.2
Ebonyi 7.9 5.1 12 25.1 23.1
Edo 14.8 15.6 12.2 27.9 35.2
Ekiti 11.4 11.6 20.6 28 12.1
Enugu 14.1 10.5 14.9 28 25.2
Gombe ■ 16.9 7.9 32.1 27.2 38.7
Imo 28.3 17.4 20.8 28.1 26.1
Jigawa ■ 27.0 5.9 26.5 14.3 35.9
Kaduna ■ 8.7 12.7 11.6 12.4 30.3
Kano ■ 10.1 5.8 27.6 14.7 21.3
Katsina ■ 10.9 11.8 37.3 11 28.1
Kebbi ■ 1.3 16.5 12 10.7 25.3
Kogi ■ 14.6 16.4 19 9.5 14.4
Kwara ■ 17.7 10.2 11 2.7 7.1
Lagos 13.7 7.6 19.5 27.6 8.3
N
asarawa ■ 11.8 17 10.1 3.4 36.5
N
iger ■ 4.2 3.9 28 11.7 39.4
Ogun 3.6 5.8 8.5 27.8 22.9
Ondo 6.7 6.3 14.9 28 12.5
Osun 7.2 6.5 12.6 27.6 3
Oyo 8.1 8.7 14.9 27.7 8.9
Plateau ■ 6.8 4.7 7.1 10.4 25.3
Rivers 66.4 12.1 27.9 27.8 25.5
Sokoto ■ 12.3 5.9 22.4 15.9 17.9
Tar ab a ■ 15.2 19.9 26.8 24.7 12.7
Yo be ■ 24.4 12.8 27.3 26.2 35.6
Zamfara ■ 19.1 16.4 13.3 14.5 42.6
FCT (Abuja) 47.8 8.7 21.5 11.8 21.1
Ni
g
eria 12.7 14.9 19.7 21.4 23.9
Source: General Household Survey Report/NBS/CBN Survey. ■ states in the northern Nigeria
While Osun State has the lowest percentage of 3, Zamfara State has the highest of 42.6 per cent in 2011; it is
difficult to give specific reason why there are variations from each State. For example, Benue State showed
single digits from 2007 -2010 and entered double digits in 2011. The State is one of the States in which most of
the people are engaged in agriculture as a means of sustenance until when they began to turn to government as
provider of employment. Diallo, Foko, Nzau, Eyeghe and Ovedraogo (2013: 119-120) posits that almost 1
billion people live in Africa, a figure forecasted to be more than double to 2.3 billion in 2050. 200 million of its
population is youths-young people ages 14-25. And by 2040 its workforce will be higher than China’s or India’s.
NBS, indicate that Nigeria has a youth population of approximately 80 million, comprising 60 per cent of the
total population. It goes without saying that Nigeria shares 40 per cent of the youth population in Africa.

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It is imperative to acknowledge that Nigerian government since 2011 has intensified effort to create jobs for the
youths and graduates from tertiary institutions including financial grants to uplift some private enterprises and
the creation of new ones through its empowerment loan by Bank of Industry (BoI) and YouWin programme
launched by President Jonathan on October 21, 2011. This present work argues that the creation of job through
YouWin programme is highly problematic because the fund is non-refundable and interest free finance therefore
no monitoring after the funds were disbursed to the winners. More of these funds are won by people who know
how to write mere business proposals but later the funds were used to purchase cars, houses and even travel to
foreign countries rather than create jobs. However, the coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of
Finance stated that 1 million to 10 million naira was distributed to 1,200 winners. The breakdown shows that 53
per cent of the winners were existing businesses while 47 per cent were new businesses. The assumption is that
YouWin is expected to provide at least 80,000 to 120,000 jobs for the unemployed youths. The disbursement
goes thus:
While there were 300 National Award Winners, there were also 180 Zonal Merit
Winners (30 per geopolitical zone), and 720 Ordinary Merit Winners picked from
the country’s six geopolitical zones; North-Central (204), North-East (167),
North-West (170), South-East (184), South-South (194), and South-West (281).
No doubt BoI is making some effort to create jobs, however, since these jobs are often temporary, such as
graduates who work under Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) as casual workers; some are in form
of loan granted to the graduates to start their own business. For example the Ministry of Trade and Investment
indicated that BoI has created over 335,000 jobs through the loans made available to Nigerians. Over 139,371
employed graduates have taken part in skill acquisition in vocational, technical and agricultural sectors; over
75,640 candidates benefited from a programme on entrepreneurial skills for graduates of tertiary institutions;
National Directorate for Employment (NDE), provided soft loans to 4,379 candidates to set up micro and cottage
enterprises; 3,255 private jobs for graduates from tertiary institutions were created by the Ministry of Labour and
Productivity; and the ministry in conjunction with NDE organized job fair where over 53,925 unemployed
people were offered employment counseling services at various job centres (Umukoro 2012: 36). Truly, this is a
strident effort, but not adequate if employment is seen as government sole responsibility.
We conjecture on four other correlates that largely exacerbates conditions of unemployment in Nigeria, namely
corruption (focus is on the processes of getting employed into most ministries), insecurity (focus is on the
inhibition of mobility), the private sector (focus is on the capacity to provide employment), and academic
curriculum (the focus is on the curriculum producing students without much technical skills and knowledge
required for modern industrial technology). Though corruption is variously defined but Putnam, Leonardi and
Nanetti (1993) offers a more inclusive insight. The work shows that corruption erodes the capacity to develop
social capital, a collection of positive social attributes, such as trust, being one’s brother’s keeper, and a shared
notion of the purpose of the existence of the larger society which are essential for a people-oriented development.
Absence of these shared collective positive social attribute is largely responsible for corruption and obviously
why government effort may derail. The report by Suleiman (2013:18-23) writes thus:
The money-for-job scam has drawn the ire of the National Assembly. On January 16, 2013
following a motion brought by Atiku Bagudu, a senator from Kebbi State, the Senate resolved to
investigate all the recruitment exercise by all federal government agencies in the last two years
with a view to punishing perpetrators of employment scams in the country. In the motion Bagudu
revealed that jobs were being sold to Nigerians instead of being given to qualified people. He
alleged that employment letters for the Nigerian Immigration Services are sold for between
#400,000 and #500,000 through a syndicate located at Gwagwalada and Karu in Abuja in
violation of rules…..another Senator Mohammed Ndume, said he once paid #200,000 “out of
compassion” to secure a job for someone in his constituency who had second class upper in
Geography. Babafemi Ojudu a senator from Ekiti State (Note 1) in an interview stated that, “it
has to do with some 17 young persons from my constituency who applied to the Nigeria Security
and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), last year. According to their story, they were asked to pay
#250,000 each, which they paid. They were subsequently screened and employed. They were
there for three months and they were paid for that period. But they got a letter last year asking
them to report to Abuja. When they came to Abuja, their letters of employment were withdrawn.
In protest they sent a protest to the President of the Senate through me because I am their
representative at the Senate”.
It is almost a norm in Nigeria for any government appointee who underwent through legislative screening to

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consider reserving a slot for the members whether at the state level or federal level should there be demand for
employment. For example, Rose Uzoma was accused of such practice, which goes thus:
The House of Representatives also launched an investigation into the alleged lopsidedness
and corruption in recruitment at the Nigerian Immigration Services. The Committee,
headed by Ahmed Idris, accused the former immigration boss Rose Uzoma of secretly
offering hundreds of jobs slots to key government officials and agencies, including the
Presidency, the minister of Interior, and the Federal Character Commission, which assists
it in violating the principles of federal character. The committee according to Idris also
found that the practice was widespread among government agencies. Uzoma was
subsequently removed as Immigration boss by President Goodluck Jonathan and the
approval given to her to employ 4,560 people halted following the controversy (Suleiman
2013:19-24).
The recent discoveries by government agencies revealed that most ministries have ghost workers, an
indication that the vacancies are filled by non-existing people. Hence this creates some kind of
unemployment in the country. “Man knows man” is observed in the implementation of the subsidy
reinvestment programme (SURE-P) inaugurated in 2012 in the area of job creation. We observed thus:
Some low key politicians were observed wearing shirts with SURE-P inscription who
claimed that they are utilizing the slot of the members representing them in the national
assembly. Their duties involved street cleaning and local security services. They see the
menial job as a form of employment. To them they are holding it not because they are not
engaged in private business but it is a pay for the work done during election.
Unemployment is further exacerbated by the insecurity in Nigeria. It is a truism that conditions of insecurity
divert attention from other programmes of the controlling authority, and may create paucity of funds because
of the resources required to contain or control it. Our analysis focuses mainly on the recent insurgency in
Nigeria which has posed serious insecurity to the state. We do not want to stress the point that a lot of
resources are expended on the counter-insurgency measures which would have been used for other
developmental programmes. The reason is that it will be extremely difficult to posit that the monetary value
expended on the counter-insurgency measures would have been used to create new industries that would have
given employment to the people, since before now such funds were fleeced away for personal use. But our
intension is to show that the present insurgency in Northern Nigeria is contributing to unemployment. Since
Nigeria operates a federal system of government which permits the establishment of federal government
agencies, and ministries in all the states of the federation, employment into these institutions is based on
policy of federal character or quota system which ensures that all the federating units are represented in the
bureaucracies of these institutions (Amuwo, Suberu, Agbaje, and Herault, 2004; Osaghae, and Onwudiwe,
2007; Onwudiwe, and Suberu, 2005. Ekeh, and Osaghae 1989). Many people from the southern part of
Nigeria employed into these federal institutions in the northern part of Nigeria where the insurgents are
operating have either resigned their employment or seek secure redeployment and there is re-entering into the
labour market when redeployment is not possible. The situation applies to the indigenes of the northern states
where the insurgency is most pronounced. Feeling insecure has rather sought for reposting and when that is
not possible they have rather opted out of job and re-entered the labour market. Finally many others who
were in their private business or self employed or have employed others under private sector but whose
business have been pulled down by the insurgents both from north and other regions of Nigeria have added to
the army of the unemployed in Nigeria. It goes without saying that Nigeria is going to experience situational
unemployment now. Table 1 above shows that most of the states in the northern part of Nigeria ranks greater
in unemployment which may not be unconnected with the level of insecurity there.
The private sector paradigm anchored on neoclassical hypothesis have provided Nigerian economic planners
with overwhelmed assumption that private ownership of enterprises as against state-owned provides greater
efficiency and more rapid growth. (Todaro and Smith 2011:758-761). Therefore, Nigeria has cued in and its
policies targeted towards government withdrawal of economic management, leaving the private sector both to
manage and also to provide employment for the people seeking job out of government bureaucracies.
However, there are three types of private investment in Nigeria, namely local or indigenous private enterprise,
foreign owned enterprise but cannot be categorized as multinational corporations, and multinational
corporations (MNCs). While the indigenous private enterprise can absolutely be controlled under the national
laws of Nigeria, the other two especially the multinational corporations operate under some form of
protection under international law (Note 2). Efficiency is the watchword in the privatization of state owned

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companies, but in Nigeria, ethnic configurations of the people also plays a role in selection of core investors.
Under private ownership the entrepreneur is at will to spread his employment to all the ethnic groups or may
reduce the workforce, preferring any employee against the other. Thus resistance manifest during
privatization in Nigeria.
Our major focus is on the capacity of private owned companies to generate employment or create jobs. The
sector is visible in manufacturing, agriculture, services, banking, retail, wholesale trade, extractive industries,
import, and export activities. However, most of them operate under some forms of leverage over whom to
employ and the category of employee because of the requirement of technical skills, protection by
international investment laws, and financial prowess. Specifically MNCs operate under certain equity shares
that enhance their bargaining power over the category of staff to employ (Gilpin, 1987). MNCs are
technological driven limiting the number of people to employ. The SMEs requires creativity and
innovativeness to expand which is most lacking in Nigeria because of near absence of scientific based
knowledge that will translate the ideas and innovation for products for the markets. At most where such ideas
are translated to products the main manufacturing plants are located in the countries origin of the experts who
developed such knowledge like the Lebanese and the Indians companies etc. Also their employment
potentialities are curtailed blamed on epileptic power supply and lack of sustainable policy supporting
indigenous business growth. Some of them like, Nigeria Textile Company and Dunlop Nigeria have either
closed down or relocated to other countries.
Finally, we examine the role academic curriculum play in producing human capital capable of engendering
new ideas in the economy. We argue that new ideas produce opportunities for expansion that generates
employment. With increasing sophistication in technology and high demand for other services outside
agricultural products, the most important factor of production has shifted to knowledge economy. The
phenomenon has already gained ground in the developed countries of the world. However, some middle
income countries like South Korea (Suh and Chen 2007), Singapore (Yew 2000) and India etc (Todaro, and
Smith, 2011) have restructured their academic curriculum to produce graduates with adequate knowledge to
produce goods and services that are not only demanded locally but are demanded in other countries. Chirot
(1985; 192-193) argued that “later industrialization could not have occurred had markets of all sorts not
achieved such a high state of development in pre-industrial Europe ---- by analogy, a kind of intellectual
market for new ideas, important thinkers and artists, and technological innovations”. Reinert (1996:161)
wrote that there is a growing awareness of the role of technology in creating economic growth. He opined
that a large research programme by the organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development -
Technology and Economy OECD-TEP), recently brought this issue, and the underlying evolutionary theory
of economic growth into focus. The academic system can be structured to give the citizenry technological
skills, rather than produce graduates who are not innovative. Yew (2000:50-52) gave an idea that Singapore
had to rethink its education policy towards producing graduates with critical innovativeness. In China there
has been a direct policy to ensure that every child born grows up to become a resourceful person to the
economy. The strategy is tailored towards ensuring a sound and useful academic curriculum for the schools
and in Singapore in specific terms; female and male of higher academic standards are encouraged to marry
each other so as to produce children with high intelligent quotients (IQ). Since our academic curriculum does
not largely target at producing people with high creativity no matter the amount charged as tuition fees,
“appropriate and requisite” knowledge will be lacking.
4. Nexus between Unemployment and National Security
Unemployment can impact negatively on Nigeria’s national security. National security is a phenomenon
(observable fact) which can be affected by so many factors. When factors such as ethnic and religious conflicts,
human trafficking, drug trafficking, external threats, unemployment, population growth, etc affects negatively
the desired or acceptable condition prescribe by the State, we say that the national security is threatened or there
is state of national insecurity. Stolberg (2012) work showed that though there might be some similarities in the
ways nations craft their national security but some nations incorporated more elements of civil society and
domestic national security than others. This underscores the importance of assessing critical issues that can pose
threat to national security. Therefore, we argue that when policy makers of a State decides to engage in a critical
assessment of whatever situation or circumstance that will on the long or short run disrupt the existing polity,
what they are doing is, giving attention to factors that can cause insecurity to the State. National security
therefore is the ideal condition of a State, that is, the situation of being secured. But this secured situation can be
threatened by external and internal factors. The focus of this study is on those internal factors which can pose
treats to national security in Nigeria. Security means freedom from danger or anxiety. Security therefore is the

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state of being secure or means deployed to actualize it. It is not only about providing protection to the individual,
physical environment, core values of a nation or other forms of national interest, but also the advancement of the
quality of lives of the citizens of a country. One critical element that can easily affect the quality of lives of the
people is when people who are capable and desirous to engage in work could not find work to do
(unemployment) howbeit, wrongly conceptualized. The situation if not contained will lead to a high level of
insecurity which manifest in form of crime, popular discontent or protest against the State, human trafficking,
insurgency, child labour, drug trafficking etc. McNamara (1968:149) states thus:
In a modernizing society, security means development. Security is not military hardware,
though it may include it. Security is not military force, though it may involve
it…………security is development and without development, there can be no security.
In the same vein Nwolise (1985:68) argued that:
A country may have the best armed forces in terms of training and equipment, the most
efficient police force, the most efficient customs men, the most active secret service agents,
and the best quality prisons, and yet be the most insecure nation in the world, as result of
defence and security problems from within – bad government, alienated and suffering masses,
ignorance, hunger, unemployment, or even activities of foreign residents or companies.
The major problem Nigeria is confronted with is the internalized notion that it must have public sector
infrastructures to accommodate citizens seeking to work in the public sector. People who are not currently
engaged in the public sector feel that government has failed in its responsibility as result they are ready tools for
people who want to foment trouble in the nation. Though government of Nigeria is introducing entrepreneurial
studies in tertiary institutions to inculcate values of self reliance after tertiary education, yet the option is
voluntary, therefore more graduates have continued to opt for public sector employment.
Nigeria government has fallen into this trap when it granted amnesty to Niger Delta Youths that majorly claimed
that the move to take up arms against the State was because of government inability to provide them with
employment. Some segment of Nigerian society even past political leaders and opposition parties has continued
to blame the terrorist activities going on in the northeast of Nigeria to inability of the government to provide
employment to the youths there. Quick reference is made to what is known as Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution of
December 2010 and January 2011 that sparked the pro-democracy revolts that set the Arab street ablaze (Jama
2014:17), when a youth, Mr. Mohammed Bouazizi a Tunisian set himself ablaze because he could not secure a
formal employment after graduating from High school (Nwolise 2013: 13). Though he was engaged in private
job, pushing wheelbarrow to sell fruits but the quick immolation committed by him shows the level of frustration
with the type of job and his standard of living. The works by Polet (2007) on the state of resistance, Fox and
Gaal (2008), working out poverty, and Alters (2011) clearly show that resistance against the State has high
correlation with the unemployed who feel that their state of being poor is linked to unemployment. The nexus
between unemployment and national security can easily be established against the backdrop of the recent
recruitment exercise carried out by Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) in 2014. Twenty people lost their lives
because of the stamped that ensured as result of large numbers of the unemployed that applied for recruitment
into NIS. The situation would have resulted to a serious threat to national security if the job seekers had turned to
the streets to foment trouble. Though work by Akande and Akerele (2008) shows that the informal sector is
absorbing some of work force but reports also show that the informal sector is bedeviled with a lot of challenges
ranging from short supply of electricity to paucity of financial capital. But the critical point to note is that people
who are in private jobs and those who don’t want to engage in private work combine to constitute job seekers in
Nigeria. Also since there is less regulation on the conditions of service that may be applied by the informal
sectors, it goes without saying that the conditions may not appeal to some graduates. This study therefore
concludes that we don’t need to deploy rocket science to establish that unemployment contributes to national
insecurity. Brown (1987: 415-416), had argued that:
Understanding the new threats to security and economic progress will challenge the analytical
skills of government. Sadly, the decision-making apparatus in most government is not
organized to balance threats of a traditional military nature with those of an ecological and
economic origin. Non-military threats are much less clearly defined.
Contrary to what obtains in developed countries, parties in less developed countries are not formed by people
who are united for promoting national interest. Citing Edmund Burke, Langford (1981:381) posited that party
can be defined as a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some
particular principles in which they are all agreed. Empirical evidence suggests that opposition parties do not take

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into cognizance the security implications before making critique of parties in government. In effort to win
election, opposition parties have blamed party in government for the unemployment in the country. The
expectations that employment would have been provided by government predisposes graduates and others not
employed to being susceptible to manipulation by the political class who often find in them readymade tools for
election violence. Others who engage in criminal activities argue that it is a reaction against the government that
did not provide them with job. Aldcroft (1996:1-22) pointed out that the developed countries had challenges of
unemployment, rather than resort to just building or creating more industries to employ the population emanating
from unbridled birth rate, there was a unique family life cycle whereby abstinence from marriage and late age of
marriage served to limit entrants into the labour market (Laslett 1988: 235-238). Nigerian case showcases poor
people giving birth to average of five children in nuclear family thereby increasing the number of people who
depend absolutely on government for not only employment but other necessities of life. These challenges cannot
but call for a more rigorous research on how to situate the context of unemployment in a proper perspective. The
recommendation made in the next section is as a result of the internalization of the wrong notion that
government should be blamed when its citizens are not employed. We argue that it is not only imperative but
instructive for the recommendations to be examined critically since government cannot extricate itself from this
lock jam because of the nature of politics in Nigeria.
5. Strategies for addressing the challenges
1) The government of Nigeria must fund adequately vocational and technical education and students who are
admitted to such schools must undersign to be self reliant after graduation but those who want to undertake
conventional courses must sign that availability of employment is in relation to available chances.
2) Students who seek admission into university education must be made to undersign that there is no compulsory
employment after graduation.
3) Each science based faculty or department in any tertiary institutions must exhibit on annually bases its
research findings, inventions or discoveries.
4) Science and engineering studies should change their course titles to read department of motor mechanics,
department of motor electrical rewires, department of car painting, house painting, brick making, house building,
animal husbandry, vegetable production, fish breeding, soap making, block making etc.
5) Each social science and arts based faculty or department must through lecture or workshop show how much
contextual issues within its discipline have found indigenous or local explanations. These recommendations
become imperative and in fact instructive because of the obvious danger extrapolated conceptualisation poses to
Nigerian State.
Because the students have been taught a special skill in either university or any other tertiary institutions, he/she
will not feel shy to engage in what he/she studied in the tertiary institution. Also when people without tertiary or
formal education see people with tertiary education engaged in practical work they will appreciate their form of
labour. At the end the incidence of self induced frustration-aggression will stop or reduce. No doubt politicians
who are in office may find it difficult to pass such legislation to law because of fear of reelection or party losing
support in the next election, but it is rational for them to think there is a high correlation between employment
and wellbeing of citizens and political stability. Though at theoretical level the causes of unemployment has
remained contested as captured by Carson, Thomas and Hecht (2002: 110-129). The work captured a critical
argument that shows the positions of the Conservatives, Liberals and the Radicals on unemployment. The
synopsis is put forward as follows:
Conservatives see the present unemployment problems as largely the result of government
efforts to manage labour markets. They therefore advocate minimum government
involvement as the only long-run solution to joblessness. Liberal arguments hold that much
of current unemployment is beyond the reach of usual stabilization policy tools. Thus new
and enlarged job programmes are necessary to remove the structural limitations of the
economy that have created chronic unemployment. For Radicals, unemployment is
characteristic of capitalism, a natural outgrowth of the system’s tendency to produce surplus
labour.
6. Conclusion
While this debate continues, nation states should device a means most suitable to tackle unemployment
challenges. For example the radicals has argued that Individuals who value their labour higher than the market
does or higher than its actual contribution to output, or who simply prefer leisure to work, may be jobless;

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however, their unemployment is voluntary and not a fundamental problem demanding the policy makers
attention. It goes without saying that unemployment can arise from various ways but constantly used as
political tools against incumbent regime thereby flaming up insecurity in a State. This recommendation is
against the backdrop that the unemployment in Nigeria in 2011 was 23.9 per cent while the poverty incidence
was almost 70 per cent. According to the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr.
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, unemployment at about 24 per cent and youth unemployment of about 37.5 per cent
remain a major challenge, more so as the number of new entrants in the labour force each year is projected to
rise above eight million by 2015. It is clear that the economy is producing well below full employment output
with all the socio-economic consequences for the country (Ekpo 2012: 43). Nigerian state will continue to
grapple with unemployment as long as increase in longevity among black which has made redundancy
unattractive as means of creating space for new employment and people retired from government but still very
young in age nurses grudges against government and easily join the opposition against incumbent government.
Consistent demand also for increase of wages by labour will definitely result to decrease in demand for more
labour. Importantly as long as technological innovation will continue to shrink physical labour, States must
re-strategize its approach to unemployment and employment. Finally as long as there will be unbridled
population growth there must always be insufficient space to employ new job seekers.
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Notes
Note 1. He is vice chairman, Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service.
Note 2. This point was extensively discussed by Iwu (2000: 40-46), Nigeria Economic Development in the 21st
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