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 tothe failure of Nigerian government to perform her constitutional functions of providing hercitizenry with the basic needs of lives, especially employment through which food could beput on the table of the masses. Unemployment ravaging the citizens of Nigeria has becomedevastating, as it has grown to its climax that in the time past, senator Dino Melaiye, a senatorfrom Kogi west senatorial district once submitted on the flow of the house of senate that thehigh rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria is sending a signal that Nigerian state is sitting ona 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 ratemay increase from 23.1% to 33.5% by this year 2020. The need to addressing this issue is thereason why this paper examines the causes of unemployment in Nigeria, and analyze the needfor the development of entrepreneurial skills, and the establishment of small-scale businesseas the panacea to the menace of unemployment in Nigeria. The paper adopted thediversification theory in explaining the need for Nigerian graduates to diversify from theattitude of searching for white collar jobs only to the idea of setting up and investing in smallscale businesses. This paper examines the impact of unemployment on Nigeria and suggeststhe establishment of small-scale businesses and entrepreneurial skills development as a wayto go in tackling the menace of unemployment in Nigeria. The paper adopted the secondarymethod 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 thecommon-sense views and knowledge of the writer