FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO PAY UNEMPLOYED YOUTHS N20,000

The rate of unemployment in the country has been a huge topic and a concern among citizens. Every year, a lot of students graduate from their respective universities to meet the existing unemployed graduates who are in search of Jobs. Many attributed this to the inability of government to provide enough jobs for the people and some to the fact that graduates are unemployable since there are constant job openings on the social media and news papers
However, our concern is on the former, as the federal government thought it wise as its responsibility to provide jobs for graduates. With this thought, the federal government brought about a scheme for unemployed youths in rural areas that will enable them earn a stipend of N20, 000 every month. The youths will be required to clear drainages, sweep markets, maintain roads, control traffic and clean public infrastructures like schools and health centres
“The scheme is targeted at 1,000 youths each from the 774 local government and is described as the biggest social intervention schemes to be carried out within a short period of time by any government in the history of Nigeria” the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo (SAN) explained during a news conference on Thursday.
“The pilot programme earlier approved by Mr President was designed to mitigate lack of job opportunities in the rural areas through a short term engagement of 1,000 unemployed persons per local government area for a period of three months.
It is a dry season/off-season transient job programme and was originally designed for the rehabilitation/maintenance of public and social infrastructure. Participants were to be paid an allowance of N20, 000 monthly and were to be recruited largely from the pool of unskilled person’s resident in those rural areas”
There are a lot of questions rallying round the minds of most youths but one burning question is if providing jobs for these sets of people, individuals in the rural areas is the next point of action? It is so clear that these areas are underdeveloped areas where necessities are unavailable. For example, the low level of education should be of concern to the government, be it formal or informal education, it would help in the building up of the person and help in the provision of great jobs. The provision of N20, 000 stipend for this job will in a day come to an end and these set of people might become jobless again. Is it really not better to teach a man how to fish rather to give him a fish? This new policy will be effective in the short run but the policy makers never looked at this policy in the long run.
Another burning matter here is the that individuals have been posting on their social media platforms complaining bitterly of spending four years in school only to be told to do menial jobs, while we can’t give an answer to this thought we look at another pressing issue. Many see this as another form of corruption, however, The minister said for the purpose of transparency and accountability, the president has approved the use of selected banks to register and collate data of the beneficiaries and all payments would be made from the Central Bank of Nigeria directly to thr beneficiary account.