GOING BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

No tree can successfully be uprooted without digging into the roots. The issue of unemployment and its consequences
of poverty, increase in crime rates and other societal ills cannot be adequately addressed if we do not go back to the roots. There is nothing that has no solution. Somebody sang a song which says
"Where there is a will there is a way." Everything is a function of going back to the drawing board, making a commitment and the difference will be clear to all. From the drawing board, let us take a look at the roots.

WHERE ARE THE ROOTS?

1. THE HIGHER INSTITUTIONS: The problem of unemployment, poverty and the likes started when the society can no longer
provide graduates who could defend their degrees let alone be creative. The educational curriculum has not been in the best of this generation. It is designed to prepare the graduates for non existent already—made jobs. It is highly faulty and must have to be re-addressed if there must be a headway. Much emphasis is also on rhetoric and theories that have no relevance to the new millennium graduate. Less emphasis is paid to human development especially in area of creativity for wealth, skill development and training for self reliance and productivity. Had
the system been decorated with curriculum that has these contents, our graduates would have come out with mentality to
gather some more practical experience in the various fields and then find their footing in the society as reasonable corporate citizens building and creating wealth.
How many engineers have we graduated
in the past decades, how many computer scientists, how many medical doctors and yet, no significant input in terms of
innovations in the various professions that will keep men and women busy creating wealth? The status-quo remains the same.
The human brain is basically the same everywhere in the world.
But why is it that we have more inventions and innovations coming from the western world? From the on-set, each one is
prepared for his tomorrow. Encouragement is given when talents are discovered and before you know it, they are groomed and
their inventions from prototypes are mass-produced....source of income, source of employment for many. It is time to go back to the drawing board. A wise man defined insanity as doing the same thing the same way over and over again expecting different results. We must not expect a change if our educational curriculum is not changed. There must be a change in the
approach. A sage once said, "to change the society, educate the people." I have come across biographies of individuals that have
made terrific impact in the world today but has little or no formal education. Some include the following:

A. Michael Faraday: He is the of electricity.
B. Henry Ford: He was the founder of Ford Motors.
C. Hyundai: A mechanic who gave the world the flashy Hyundai
cars on our roads today.
D. Asa Candler: A drug store keeper who gave the world Coca-
Cola to be drinking.
E. Thomas Edison: He was popularly known for the incandescent
light bulb he gave the world.
F. Bill Gates: A school dropped out of Havard University, and he was the father and founder of Microsoft Corporation, he has by implication become one of the richest man in the world today.
Friends, our higher institutions have to go back to the drawing board. Let there be skill acquisition classes, creativity classes and
stuffs like that, that will provoke students to be self-reliant and more productive. Students should have motivation lectures to
empower them to achieve. Enough of roaming about looking for non-existent white - collar jobs. In fact, those that want to employ you are even looking for how they will sustain themselves because "downsizing" has taken the order of events in these places you want to be employed.

2. NYSC ORIENTATION CAMPS AND OFFICES: I do not mean to criticize but the truth is what actually is the vision or objective behind the National Youth Service Programme? The one year programme helps in allowing the coppers to be adjusted to the society having left the Universities the previous session. That is good and quite in order. But where we cannot achieve any definite purpose or focus in the lives of these graduates within one year and have them roam our streets again in search of jobs after being sustained by the federal government for a year is something
not to write home about. In my opinion, I would have suggested that the government goes back to the drawing board and fashion
a practical curriculum that will at least make a greater percentage of these graduates to think of self-reliance as an alternative to the high rate of unemployment. That will have much impact if the first root which is the higher institution is put in consideration as
per redirection of the educational curriculum, and then following up the students in active one year entrepreneurship development
programme during their National Youth Service.
Until the N.Y.S.C directorate devices a
package that will help these coppers to be self-reliant and productive, we shall continue to have a situation where they are
sustained by the federal government for a year and then be thrown into the street going nowhere but in the name of job-searching.

3. THE CHURCHES: It is not enough to dress corporately, neat and clean on Sunday mornings, deliver powerful sermons or messages and then tell the people the Lord will bless them without doing anything practical to alleviate their pains. People coming to your church are suffering at home. The heads of the families have lost
their jobs to "downsizing". Things are no longer the way it used to be. Therefore, you must have to show concern. If you are a
pastor or preacher, you have to be sensitive to the wastes in the economy and of course the needs of your congregation. Principles
without practice makes nonsense of your success teachings. You don't tell them that there is a miracle job out there for them
when you know very well that the rate of unemployment is alarmingly high. Okay, who do you want to employ them? Who
are you looking unto for wealth creation and then they will come and pay tithe and give fat offerings in the church? Friend, it is
time that we go back to the drawing board.

There is enough wealth in the church to enhance creativity and create avenue for
more wealth. If the religious leaders could be honest and rise up to the task of building the people and not just repeating "religious
sermons", a lot of destinies will be molded in this nation.
So my word to religious bodies is to
devise means of training their people on how to professionally start and manage small and medium scale industries.
I believe that if the roots mentioned
above should really address the issues of poverty and unemployment as it relates to them there in, tremendous progress will be made.