The National Executive Council (NEC), in Nigeria, has set up a committee that would address our current paralyses of youth unemployment and national security in the country. According to Premium Times, the “decision was taken on the backdrop of issues triggered by the weeks-long #EndSARS protests where young Nigerians sought an end to police brutality, before it was hijacked by hoodlums who have caused chaos across the country in the past week”.
As I have noted in the past, Nigeria must examine how the Igbo Apprenticeship System could help since the formal model of creating opportunities has stalled in the nation. So, NEC should examine if IAS could help accelerate government’s efforts in the nation on creating youth opportunities. The United Nations’ conclusion that “ the most human security secure geo-political zone is the South-East” in Nigeria cannot be uncorrelated with the impact of IAS.
There is something that has worked in Nigeria. It is the Igbo apprenticeship system. It is the reason why the southeastern Nigeria is considered the region in Nigeria with the highest level of human wellbeing (not necessarily education attainment which is not exclusive) by the United Nations’ “Human Security and Human Development” report.
The report further highlights the existing gap in human security across the geo-political zones of the country; – the most human security secure geo-political zone is the South-East while the North-West and the North-East geopolitical zones are the least human security secured, with residents of the Federal Capital Territory being the worst in most realms of the Human Security Index. The North-East region of the country has been the most affected by the more than 5 yearlong military insurgency. It also remains among the least developed parts of the country.
The Igbo Apprenticeship System is a business philosophy of shared prosperity where participants co-opetitively participate to attain organic economic equilibrium where accumulated market leverageable factors are constantly weighted and calibrated out, via dilution and surrendering of market share, enabling social resilience and formation of livable clusters, engineered by major participants funding their competitors, with success measured on quantifiable support to stakeholders, and not by absolute market dominance.
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I call on the NEC committee to adopt and upgrade the IAS because it has relevance today in Nigeria. With a support system in IAS, we can deepen the impacts of government initiatives, and advance the welfare of our citizens.
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Whoever thinks that doling out cash, as a means of improving welfare or cushioning hardships, is deluded; if it works elsewhere, it has never worked in Nigeria.
Every kobo we want to spend on the people needs to go into two things: human capital development and building systems that support entrepreneurship and self-reliance; anything else is a scam.
We cannot have dishonest and uninformed creatures talking about development and wellbeing; it’s an insult to all those who can think for themselves.
Even the ‘I’ before the ‘AS’ will make the funny creatures undermine this suggestion, only to go on to scale poverty and misery; the only department they have done remarkably well.
We are watching.