THE National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on Friday, August 14, 2020, released the statistics on unemployment for the second quarter (Q2) of 2020 after a long hiatus since the third quarter (Q3) of 2018. The percentage of unemployed people stands at 27.1 per cent. The last report which was released in 2018 showed the rate at 23 per cent. Apparently, within 2 years, the unemployment rate in Nigeria rose by 4 per cent. This points to – among other things – the fact that President Buhari’s social and welfare programmes for the unemployed and less privileged, which are touted in various fora as a panacea to the perennial unemployment problem in Nigeria have not been effective.
As part of his manifestoes in 2015, he promised to provide three million jobs yearly. In order to fulfill this promise, he rolled out the N-Power program, Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme (CCTS) and Special Public Works(SPW) programme among others. In corroborating the success of the social and welfare programmes, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, Special Adviser to President Buhari on National Social Welfare recently said that over 11.5 million people have already benefited directly from all the programmes and about 9 million others have benefited indirectly….
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