Words of Orey

YOUTH POVERTY IN NIGERIA: ITS CAUSES, IMPACT AND HOW IT CAN BE ALLEVIATED

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Aug 11, 2023,

Orey Adelokun

Jeffrey Kurebwa and Obadiah Dodo define youth poverty as “the type of poverty that is visible among young people and it renders them vulnerable to challenges relating to education and employment”. A problem that plagues the people of Nigeria today. Youth poverty is driven by the low income in Nigerian households with 63% of Nigerian residents being multidimensionally poor. This article is concerned with the reasons for low household income and, by extension, youth poverty and by what means we may rectify the deplorable situation we find ourselves in.

CAUSES OF YOUTH POVERTY AND THEIR SOLUTIONS

Lack of marketable skills

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s 60×30 Strategic Plan defines marketable skills as “Those skills valued by employers that can be applied in a variety of work settings, including interpersonal, cognitive, and applied skills areas. These skills can be either primary or complementary to a major and are acquired by students through education, including curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities”. Nigeria lacks this.

Senator Ngige–the nation’s Minister of Labour and Employment–said last year that the rampant unemployment among the youths stems from a “lack of functional skills”. This ineptitude is due to the deficient educational system in the country. Minister of Education, Malam Adamu, stated at the National Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) conference that it fails to produce “graduates with marketable and employable skills” and it wrestles with the “challenges of skills gaps, especially in technical and vocational fields”.

Due to the outdated data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, I will rely on Statista for it. The youth unemployment rate in individuals aged 15-24 is 19.61% as of 2021. Though this number may be high because the people in that bracket may be full-time students. As a result of blowback from austerity following the 2016 recession, the tertiary education system became disoriented. Nigerians forked over the highest number of international students annually further increasing the youth unemployment rate probably due to less privileged youths rising in proportions in the country.

Adamu recommended the government authorise the “mandatory inclusion of trade subjects in the secondary school curriculum and entrepreneurship education in the tertiary education curriculum as part of efforts to bridge the gap”, arguing for a “curriculum that would equip graduates with the right set of skills to survive in a harsh economic environment”. Adamu nonetheless is aware that “most of the schools in the country lack competent teachers and instructional materials for the effective handling of the 37 trade subjects”. Ngige’s resolution to alleviate this issue was to qualify “37,000 unemployed graduates, 1,000 in each of the states of the federation and FCT, on soft skills and marketable resumes”37,000 unemployed graduates, 1,000 in each of the states of the federation and FCT, on soft skills and marketable resumes”. He further said “In the coming months, we will also train 3,500 unemployed youth in various vocations including fashion design, catering and event management, solar panel and CCTV installation, among others’’. This was said 16 months ago. Festering this defunct education system is the excess subsidy. It artificially controls the system leading to a lack of professionalism, insufficient education and inadequate funding.

More pragmatic steps should be taken to tackle marketability. My simple proposal is this. First, the government should create a pathway into vocational studies after the JSS3 examinations. The subsidies should be removed from the public schools and reallocated to the vocational pathway thereby feeding the immediate need for vocational personnel in the country. Simultaneously, the school-to-profession pipeline should be optimised and fast-tracked. By that I mean reassessing the qualifications for certain roles, for instance, a teacher at a level in SS3 and below does not need a degree before they can be employed. Again, if someone were to pursue cybersecurity, they would be put in apprenticeship programs instead of college which is cheaper, cuts down cost and puts them directly in the line of employment. Additional costs can be cut down by doing away with unnecessary practices such as uniforms then the money saved can be used to purchase profitable materials like textbooks. Of course, the most foundational to any advantageous change is good governance and that will require substantial reform.

Illiteracy

“Education will do it much faster than legislation. You can’t legislate goodwill” 1964 Malcolm X. The solution to the first two points had been strict legislation which, in itself, is not wrong. However, as pointed out by Mr X, the truly transformative change cannot be reached by mere law. Enlightenment will have to be undergone by society as a whole.

The world bank states that as of 2018, 25% of those aged 15-24 are illiterate but the Federal Government said there had been a 7% drop in illiteracy of the whole population to 31% from 2015 to 2022. Data about literacy in Nigeria are either outdated or questionable therefore, I will be focusing on the dangers of illiteracy and the benefits of education.

The problem with illiteracy is the dependency and vulnerability it causes its victims. I will exemplify this through one aspect, radicalism, specifically Boko Haram. In six states examined in Northern Nigeria, illiteracy was a dominant factor in religious extremism. For instance, Gombe ranked it fourth out of sixteen factors as the cause of radicalism in the youth. It comes as no surprise that the uneducated are victimised by this separatist faction due to their inability for critical and independent thought. As a result, it is the poor that suffer the brunt of this as they are “unlikely to send their children to school and are likely to be illiterate”. In turn, the illiterate remain poor, continuing the cycle of poverty; further evidence of the self-sustaining trait of poverty. This is just one unfortunate effect of illiteracy.

We must enforce an upheaval of the current, non-central educational system as with the marriage laws. Literacy programs must be established in the various regions of the country, adjusting for size and funding as needed. Apart from basic education, the youth need to be instilled with societally beneficial attitudes while discouraging negative character. On the whole, a change like this cannot be enacted through the school system alone but through total societal change starting at the family level.

Polygamy: Religion and Culture

Polygamy, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English, is the practice or custom of having more than one wife or husband at the same time. In Nigeria, as in most places where polygamy is practised, it takes the form of polygyny; the taking of multiple wives by a single man. Now to clarify the causes of polygamy and its nature and effect. 

While Islam, under the Sharia law, is often viewed as an agent of polygamy, it is of note that polygamy is predominantly practised in Sub-Saharan Western Africa alone while being out of common practice or criminalised in the Muslim world in countries such as Tunisia. As Kramer notes, “Fewer than 1% of Muslim men live with more than one spouse in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and Egypt – all countries where the practice is legal at least for Muslims”. Rhomadi notes that “Polygamy done on the basis of filling shehada alone is far from the idealised principles of marriage, believing that perfect marriage, mawaddah wa rahmah, the marriages that are cemented with harmony, peace and happiness that are felt by the whole family”. So we cannot prosecute one demographic as the primary cause of polygamy. It is exemplified by this annotated map:

For veracity, polygamy is better understood as a result of the culture and tradition of Nigerians. While Islam can be viewed as a tertiary reason for polygamy in the North where polygamy is preeminent, in countries, like Nigeria where polygamy is commonplace, it is present in people of all faiths; Islam mostly, Christianity and tribal religions. Intuitively, it is easy to purport that the vast majority of these marriages are conducted by an elite class, but data supposes they are brought mainly about by a less able class of Nigerians. However, this is just a general tendency as there are still affluent men with many wives, i.e. the Governor of Bauchi State and the late Alaafin of Oyo. Unicef states that “42% and 46% of women aged 15-49 in the Northeast and Northwest are in polygamous unions, and 18% and 29% of men are in the same” and these regions are the least financially secure. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 63% of Nigerian residents are multidimensionally poor. Taking into account the 28% of Nigerians in polygamous households, we get a 17.64% probability of being both multidimensionally poor and living in a polygamous household. That number on its own might seem small but when the hundreds of millions of Nigerians are considered, it becomes daunting. It is now evident that there is a strong correlation between polygamous marriages and poverty.

COUNTRIES% LIVING IN POLYGAMOUS HOUSEHOLDS
Mali34%
Senegal23%
Nigeria28%
Ivory Coast12%
Burkina Faso36%
Chad15%
DR Congo2%
Individuals living in polygamous households in West and Central African Households

The reason for this is simply the restriction it places on these families, specifically the men, in decreasing the probability of them escaping poverty and, as a result, they lack the means to sustain themselves and their families, giving us a glimpse of a self-perpetuated cycle of poverty.

Furthermore, polygamy convolutes and inhibits the full and proper function of marriage. Brooks articulates that “the institution of marriage encompasses far more than sexual relations, but extends to a host of functions, such as property rights, family alliances, and the raising of children”. Even the bible, a book erroneously used as a defence for polygamy, has its marriages considered holistically considering the entire socio-economic aspect even prohibiting its kings from taking multiple wives. And if the total extent of a single marriage is not reached as related in Mosaic and Islamic law, no additional wives may be allotted. Therefore, I find it apparent that the orthodox design of marriage is monogamy and that polygamy is inimical to the well-being of any entity, from a personal to a national scale.

Early marriages

Early or child marriages are defined as marriages taking place before the age of 18 around the world. The 1999 constitution holds the same definition. However, there is a lot of discrepancy in the laws surrounding the legal age, that is for an adult or marriage. Okafor articulates this conundrum in the following,

“Article 2 of Children and Young Persons Act, enacted in Eastern, Western and Northern regions… defines a ‘child’ means as person under the age of fourteen years, while ‘young person’ means a person who has attained the age of fourteen years and is under the age of seventeen years”

“The Immigration Act stipulates that any person below 16 years is a minor, whereas the Matrimonial Causes Act puts the age of maturity at 21. The latter act becomes irrelevant in practice, since the individual States state their age for marriage. As for penal responsibility, Article 50 of the Penal Code (North) states: No act is an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age; or by a child above seven years of age but under twelve years of age who has not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequence of such act”

“The Matrimonial Causes Act, 2004, S3(1)(e), provides that a party to a marriage must not be an infant. Marriage law in the former Eastern Nigeria S3(1) in particular states that a marriage between or in respect of persons either of whom is under the age of 16 years shall be void”

“In the Northern States of Borno, Benue and Kwara, the marriageable age for girls has been fixed by various declarations of Marriage law and Custom Orders. Hence, Kwara 13 years, Idoma and Tiv in Benue,12 years. The Nigerian Criminal Code S222 provides against the procuration of girls under 18 years of age and S233 provides against abduction”.

Beyond legislation, another reason for child nuptials is religion, specifically Islam. The utilisation of Shari’a law in a third of all Nigerian states is in the North where early marriages are prevalent. And because Nigeria operates with a manifold judiciary system, Shari’a has a basis in legality. Even a senator, Ahmad Yerima, tied the knot with a thirteen-year-old Egyptian and justified it with the marriage of Mohammed to Aisha, a girl aged nine.

The legislation and religious backing surrounding the marriageable age is truly frightening. This fear is further exacerbated by the statistics of such premature unions in Nigeria.

  • 11.5 million girls are married before the age of 15.
  • 24.4 million girls are married before the age of 18.
  • The majority of 31-70% of girls, wed before 18, aged 20-24 were married in the North with the rest in the East.
  • 3 in 10 young women were married in childhood.
  • 46% of women married before 18 believe wife-beating is justified.
  • Over 90% of girls aged 15-17 in some form of a union are out of school.
  • 63% of girls married before 18 aged 20-24 gave birth.

Very worrying numbers, although they have been dropping steadily since the 90s, one little girl is still too many. Coupled with polygamy the dangers of early marriages become amplified. And like polygamy, a practice that victimises half of the nation’s population from such a young age, limiting their potential directly contributes to the festering of youth poverty. Early marriage deteriorates the physiological welfare of these girls. Physically through sexual abuse, childbirth(causing conditions such as obstetric fistula–a condition where the rectum and vagina are abnormally connected) and mentally as they are subjugated from such an early age. 

Okafor sums up my argument as such,

“Child marriage undermines nearly every Millennium Development Goal; it is an obstacle to eradicating poverty, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, improving maternal and child health, and reducing HIV and AIDS. Child marriage also infringes on the rights of women and children by denying them access to an education, good health, and freedom”.

To eradicate this degeneracy, there must and will be a repeal of inadequate and obscure legislation concerning marriages and children and the introduction of capital punishment for the practitioners of child unions. The tri-fold judiciary must be done away with for the sake of the vulnerable, little girls given in marriage every year in favour of singular, national laws that will foster their well-being.

Lack of Documentation of Interest in Assets

An organised library of asset holding has been integral to the success of any capitalist society and its lack thereof, the cause of rampant disenfranchisement and inequality. This is well articulated with the following quotes from de Soto in The Mystery of Capital,

“What creates capital… is an implicit process buried in the intricacies of its formal property systems”

“Property… is… a mediating device that captures and stores most of the stuff required to make a market economy run”

“It is property documentation that fixes the economic characteristics of assets so that they can be used to secure commercial and financial transactions, and ultimately provides the justification against which central banks issue money”

The value of documentation is exemplified by de Soto. Now to evaluate documentation in Nigeria. I will relate a personal experience regarding this section and then I will provide links to more elaborate articles on documentation, specifically in land ownership. 

During the course of this summer, I was privileged to witness a police mediation in a land dispute between some business associates and a family. The family sold the land to the associates to the men then, at a later date, they sold a different parcel of land to another group, infringing on the land of the original group. It has halted the construction on the land, inhibiting economic progress.

https://guardian.ng/property/how-absence-of-land-titles-impedes-real-estate-growth/

Poor documentation dampens real estate investors’ appetite

With the conclusion of this article, I implore all Nigerians everywhere not to delegate the restorative efforts against youth poverty but to be enraptured themselves in the reformation of systematic issues in the country and to heal and soothe the scars of decades of neglected trauma.

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