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American don identifies joblessness as greatest bane of Nigeria
By ANDREW OJIEZEL
After a thorough studying of situation confronting the country, the President of American University of Nigeria (AUN), Dr. Margee Ensign has noted that the greatest problem confronting the country is unemployment.
Ensign noted that with the increase in the size of the country’s population, Nigeria would find it difficult to provide jobs for over 200 million young people who will live in it by 2045.
Dr. Ensign, who said this in Abuja at the ninth Annual Alumni Career Fair for students of the institution, advised the Federal Government to train its citizens on how to create jobs in order to overcome unemployment challenges.
“You are growing so rapidly. You are doubling every 26 years. Your biggest challenge in Nigeria is to create employment for the 200 million young people who will live in your country by 2045.
“You have 100 million right now. How many are out of work? Our job is not only to train them to find jobs but to create companies that are creating employment. That is what they do in the school of business and entrepreneurship.
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“We have got a bunch of kids who are only a year ago out of school are here hiring our students. That is what has to happen in Nigeria. It is a big national challenge to have over 70 million out of jobs in Nigeria.”
Ensign said that the focus of AUN is to give students education that enables them to find and create jobs.
“It is really important at AUN we give them the education that gives them the knowledge, skills and even the attitude that they need find jobs and then create employment.
“AUN is a development university and it is probably pretty abstract to you guys. Every students at AUN is in a class that exposes them to the hardest problem your country is facing, whether it is poor health, illiteracy, they have to go out to the community.
“Our students live in a different world than we live in, many of the jobs that they are going to have we don’t even know the name yet. To me it is not just important to look for employment; it is starting your own.”
Earlier, the Dean, School of Law of the university, Professor Oladejo Olowu, told journalists that the institution had concluded plans to establish a gender law programme that would educate students as well as Nigerians on gender-based legal issues.
The University, which is the first to introduce the course, plans to produce lawyers that study gender law.