Timinipere Akpo, a mathematics graduate from the Niger Delta university, cloaked in a rented over-size convocation gown, stood still and pondering after she took the last shot of photographs with her family members at the convocation ground. “free at last,” she muttered to herself.
But truly, is she really free? The truth of the matter is that another young graduate has just been thrown into the over-saturated unemployment market. She is indeed only free from the confinement known as the four walls of the university for four or fives years and thrown into what Fela tagged the “outside world” where the authorities threat the citizens in manners worse than those in the prisons.
After our independence in the 60s up until the early 70s just after the civil war young graduates across the country find it very easy to get placement into the civil service. The newly emerging private sector at the time also was looking for fresh brains to drive their businesses and was also absorbing a large number of young school leavers and university graduates. At the time, companies pay a visit to the universities to scout for bright young chaps.
It was fun to go to school at the time, because you are sure of employment immediately after graduation. Parent too share in that joy as the are relieved almost instantaneously of further supporting that child, but instead look to their children for support. Both child and parent breath a sigh of relief availed by the favourable employment environment. That was the period we now sometimes refer to as the ‘good old days.’
At the time, the government was rebuilding the country after just coming out of the bloody and devastating civil war. As part of the rebuilding process, government needed young educated men and women to fill up positions in the Federal and States civil service. The economy experienced a boom and a new middle class emerged from senior service and peace was restored to the land, allowing the military government to fasten the reconstruction process which led to the rapid infrastructural development across the country.
The 80s heralded series of draconian military administrations that placed embargo on wholesale employment, thereby ending a period of prosperity for the teaming youth population of university graduates.
Those who took up jobs at that time form a majority of the present senior and top ranking civil servants and politicians ruling the country today. These groups of people are the ones who placed and perpetuate the embargo on employment. An embargo that affects the teaming population but favours only those top government officials who secretly embark on recruitment exercises to employ their siblings and friends. These same people are doing everything to continue to remain in government. They continually extend their retirement, and even when age finally catches up with them and they have tp eventually retire, they quickly come back through the back door to the federal service by hijacking political positions through elections or appointments.
The old unrelenting civil servants and politicians are the reason why the embargo on employment remains un-lifted and our youth population can not find job placements into the federal civil service. There can’t be jobs for the teaming young graduates when the present civil service is occupied by over-aged persons who have remained in service for more than three generations.
These are the people in the federal and state civil service and in elective positions in government which critics often tag as ‘dead woods.’ The government has become a hugh trash can continually recycling over-aged and ineffective people generation after generation, instead of recruiting energetic young men and women with fresh ideas abound every part of the country.
Have you ever asked yourself what a 65 year old teacher has to offer to a class of hyper-active SSII students who are full of excitement and are loaded with knowledge about new trends in science and technology, and are new media platform freaks. Of course they would be bored and uninterested in whatever “grandma” has to offer, according to Uche, an SSII student of Queens College describes one of her teacher.
The progress of the nation is hinged on these old recycled weaklings. They are the reason why the every pragmatic and revolutionary ideas are frustrated and discredited, never allowing them to sees the light of day. What happened to the reports of all the ‘high powered’ panels and committees set up by the Federal and State governments in the past and present? Why has commercializing the PHCN met stiff opposition from those in the service? What is responsible for the repeated stalling of the PIB bill? Why has the electronic voting system faced stiff opposition? I can to on and on. You and I know the answers to these and other related questions.
It is time this nation considers the younger generation in the scheme of things. We must now start to create a place for our children in the present which they are part of, and not leave them to the faith of a future they may never be part of, just as many in my generation where left out in the present scheme of things.
For the young generation to have a place in the civil service and in government the retirement age must be reduced to 50 years and strict enforcement of the policies on retirement age must be enforced with strictness. Part of the measures to be introduced to ensure strict compliance is to use data from birth registries instead of falsified affidavits from employees. I believe 50 years is ideal because if a young graduate is gainfully employed immediately after leaving the university at age 23, and has their first child at age 25. And in another 25 years, all three of the children from this family would have graduated from the university when their parents would just be clocking 50 years.
That is just the right time for ‘daddy and mommy’ to retire from active service. This is a sacrifice the aging population must be able accept for the good of their own children and the younger population in general.
