Curbing Youth Restiveness and Conflicts Through Effectual Structural Policies for Rural Employment Generation in Nigeria

Abstract

The apparent neglect of Nigeria’s rural sector has provoked daunting challenges including youth restiveness, ethno-religious conflicts, unemployment and pervasive poverty. It is logical to finger rural unemployment as the antecessor of those other consequences. While it has been argued that the rate of unemployment is higher in urban than rural Nigeria, the nature and magnitude of rural unemployment (mostly underemployment) is becoming worrisome. For instance, youth unemployment in the country averaged 23.63 percent from 2014 until 2018 reaching an all-time high of 38 percent in Q2 of 2018 and a record low of 11.70 percent in Q4 of 2014. Furthermore, the Labour Statistics Report of Nigeria in Q4 of 2017 showed that there are about 7.9 million Nigerian youths aged 15 – 34 that are unemployed, mostly in the rural areas. Thus paper makes an introspection into what went wrong and explores vistas through effectual structural policies on rural infrastructures, agricultural transformation, skills acquisition, robust and sustainable credit and so on. These policies are aimed at realizing the multi-pronged goals of curbing youth restiveness, checking rural – urban migration, generating income and employment and transforming the agricultural sector for meaningful contribution to the country’s GDP. The need is imperative and there is no better time for these policies than now.

Keywords: Youth restiveness policies rural employment generation

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-16-20

Publication date: August 31^st 2019