Failed Government, Youths Unemployment and the Challenges of Insecurity in Nigeria: The Need for Entrepreneurial Skills Development and Citizens Investment in Small Scale Businesses

Abstract

Nigerian state has been bedeviled by poverty and unemployment, one that has emerged due to the failure of Nigerian government to perform her constitutional functions of providing her citizenry with the basic needs of lives, especially employment through which food could be put on the table of the masses. Unemployment ravaging the citizens of Nigeria has become devastating, as it has grown to its climax that in the time past, senator Dino Melaiye, a senator from Kogi west senatorial district once submitted on the flow of the house of senate that the high rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria is sending a signal that Nigerian state is sitting on a time bomb which could explode at any point in time if the menace is not quickly addressed. The Minister of labour and employment Chris Ngige once posits that the unemployment rate may increase from 23.1% to 33.5% by this year 2020. The need to addressing this issue is the reason why this paper examines the causes of unemployment in Nigeria, and analyze the need for the development of entrepreneurial skills, and the establishment of small-scale businesses as the panacea to the menace of unemployment in Nigeria. The paper adopted the diversification theory in explaining the need for Nigerian graduates to diversify from the attitude of searching for white collar jobs only to the idea of setting up and investing in small scale businesses. This paper examines the impact of unemployment on Nigeria and suggests the establishment of small-scale businesses and entrepreneurial skills development as a way to go in tackling the menace of unemployment in Nigeria. The paper adopted the secondary method of data collection as valuable information’s and data are retrieved from the readymade works of scholars and authors, while other information’s are gathered through the common-sense views and knowledge of the writer.