Where do we go from here?

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In fact, the major thing that drew most Nigerian youths to cast their votes for the retired Army General was his promise to create three million jobs every year. The youths who make up 50% of Nigeria's population, queued up behind him.

Another campaign promise was to pay every jobless Nigerian the sum of N5,000 every month as stipends to hold body and soul together till he or she gets something tangible to do.

The elections came and PMB won in a landslide; the youths and other unemployed Nigerians dug out their credentials, dusted up their curriculum vitae, ironed their suits in readiness for job interviews as promised by Baba.

But after waiting for one and a half year, the music changed and the ruling class came out with a damning verdict that they did not promise anyone any job or money.

They now play a swan song of how the past government destroyed the economy and the country, so much that they can never fulfill any of their campaign promises.

It has been one blame game too many while the youths now realize they have been taken for another long ride.

Instead of jobs being created, Nigerians are losing their jobs by the droves on a daily basis and the statistic is still counting.

In the last one year, millions of jobs have been lost and still counting, as a result of skeletal production or outright closure of companies due to the Federal Government policy on restriction of foreign exchange for 41 raw materials, high cost of living, poor wages, further deteriorating electricity with high tariffs, persistent fuel crisis with the new pump price of petroleum of N145 per litre, workers indeed are the endangered species.

Recently, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), revealed that about 4.58 million Nigerians have lost their jobs since President Buhari came into office.

The NBS disclosed that 2.6 million Nigerians became unemployed within the first and second quarter of 2016, adding that 1.46 million became unemployed in the third quarter of 2015, while another 518,102 became unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2015.

The report reads in part:

“During the reference period, the number of unemployed in the labour force increased by 1,158,700 persons, resulting in an increase in the national unemployment rate to 13.3% in Q2 2016 from 12.1 in Q1 2016, 10.4% in Q4 2015 from 9.9% in Q3 2015 and from 8.2% in Q2 2015.

In view of this, there was a total of 26.06 million persons in the Nigerian labour force in Q2 2016, that were either unemployed or underemployed compared to compared to 24.5 million in Q1 2016 and 22.6 million in Q4 2015.”

Though many, especially the supporters of PMB, think this statistic is false or at most, doctored by enemies of the government, the stark reality remains that in the past one and a half year, there has been massive job losses in every sector of the country and still counting.

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Though the present government should not be blamed in totality, it still has a lion share of the blame because of its policies that have made the cost of doing business in the country astronomical, thereby forcing investors to withdraw their funds, and companies closing shops and running to other countries with more friendly policies.

So where do we go from here?