As a way to curb the high rate of joblessness among the teeming unemployed Nigerian youth particularly secondary school graduates, I suggest that local governments should introduce a compulsory youth service for them.
Such will inculcate the spirit of patriotism in them, apart from paying them. It will become a sort of national or state service depending on which tier of government is sponsoring it.
Government should collate names of youths who are school leavers and put them into a corps and could also have uniforms for them for proper identification.
Such a corps could then be put to good and many positive uses. Some could be used in road construction, administrative duties, security work, sanitation and artisanship such as welding and a thousand jobs you can think of. They could also be introduced to skills acquisition programmes and various trade options. The service could last for a year or two per batch of about 500 or i000 depending on what wage bill the local government can shoulder.
After their batch duration, they should be officially discharged and another batch brought in. If introduced, such a scheme could be the beginning of social securities for unemployed Nigerian youths.
John Akpan
Nsit Ibom
