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YOUTH unemployment is a time bomb in Africa waiting to explode and shatter its fragile economy. In Nigeria, with a population of about 170 million, youth unemployment is about 60 percent, according to the International Labour Organisation. The problem of youth unemployment attracted the attention of African leaders who devoted time to discuss the issue at the African Development Bank Annual Meetings in Lusaka, Zambia, in May. Interestingly, Professor Akpan H. Ekpo, director general of West African Institute for financial and Economic Management, WAIFEM, who speaks with Maureen Chigbo, editor, Realnews, on the margins of the annual meetings, disagrees with the approach of focusing on entrepreneurship to solve the problem.
Ekpo, 62, who graduated from Howard University, Washington, DC, USA, in 1976 with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Masters in Economics, states categorically that government is making a big mistake in thinking that the solution to unemployment lies with the private sector. Ekpo, who also has his doctorate degree in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and whose areas of interest include Economic Theory (Microeconomics and Macroeconomics), Public Sector and Quantitative Methods, gave some thought provoking recommendations on dealing with the issue which portends a bleak future for the continent if it is not properly handled.
Also, the professor has pragmatic ideas about the energy and climate change debate. He argues that the drive for renewable energy or clean energy by the West in Africa is all about market for products and not necessarily because of any good intention to power the continent.
Ekpo was appointed visiting professor of Economics by the University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe in 1989 and has advised and held several government appointments in Nigeria including being chairman, ministerial advisory committee, Federal Ministry of Finance; member of the board of the Utilities Charges Commission 2005-2007; non-executive director of the Central Bank of Nigeria 2005-2009; Central Bank of Nigeria Monetary Policy Committee, 2005-2009; National Economic Management Team 2008-2009; Technical Adviser to Vision 2010; Member Steering Committee of Vision 2020. In 2001, he was honoured with the National Productivity Merit Award by the President of Nigeria. In 2003, he received the Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Africa Leadership Award in Accra, Ghana.
From 1996-1998, he was Visiting Scholar to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He is also a member of the Nigerian Statistical Association, American Economic Association, Royal Economic Society, Institute of Public Finance, Germany, African Finance and Economic Association, USA, National Economic Association, USA, among others.
Professor Ekpo is an accomplished scholar and researcher and has published more than 200 articles in refereed national and international journals, chapters in books and other scholarly outlets. He also consults for several national and international organisations such as the National Planning Commission, National Manpower Board, African Capacity Building Foundation, World Bank, African Economic Research Consortium, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, European Commission, Forum of Federations (Canada), among others.
Below is Ekpo’s thought provoking interview on how African Development Bank annual meetings can be more meaningful and recommendations on dealing with youth unemployment. Excerpts
Realnews: How do you see the African Development Bank, AfDB, annual meetings? Every year, people converge for it. There will be a theme but nobody knows the impact it’s having on Africa’s development.
Ekpo: Yes, you are right, it is annual event. The topic is useful: “Energy and Climate Change”. But the problem since I have been coming here for the past five years, is that we don’t know whether the previous ideas have been implemented. That’s one of the biggest problems. My worry is that every year we come here is like a jamboree. Good seminars. Papers are presented. We issue communique but what next? So we are hoping that with the current president, maybe he will be different. We have seen some signs. I have seen him sit down in a panel discussion, taking part. Previous presidents don’t do that. After opening ceremonies you don’t see them again except if there is another big meeting. But I saw that Akinwumi Adesina, President of the AfDB taking part in several panels, contributing. May be he has a passion for what he wants to do. So let’s hope that going forward there will be some implementation of whatever was decided in the annual AfDB meetings.
Realnews: At the meetings, panelists have reeled a lot of figures, including 700,000 who lack access energy to clean cooking energy. All the statistics do they really make any sense to the common man?
Ekpo: Well, it may not make all that sense in quote to the common man because the common man wants be able to use gas to cook and maybe he is not doing that in the villages. It will make sense may be in the next four years if things improve. When you give statistics, it is continental. They give continental statistics. There are countries that are pushing it either forward or backward okay. When you say, for example, 700,000 Africans don’t have access to water. They need to go a little further to tell us which countries are worst hit. Don’t just say West Africa because West Africa has many countries. Just tell us which countries so that next time around we can judge whether there has been progress in those countries. This continental data they hide a lot of things. For instance, you say that there is a lot of child mortality. Now, we don’t know which country that is doing well in it or bad. We just have continental report millions of people are in poverty. We want to know how many of these people are in Nigeria, Cameroun, or in South Africa. The data is there so those global data hide country specific issues where we can now hold our governments to say look in Nigeria we were told that X-million of people are in poverty. After four years we want to find out whether you have moved some of them out of poverty. You get the point now, that’s the problem I have with some of their statistics. Then statistics also depends on the sample you have taken from a population. So for me the AfDB has done its best but there is still a lot to be done in terms of implementing the ideas agreed upon.
Realnews: Did you listen to what ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo said yesterday about oil companies preferring to flare the gas and refusing to use it to generate energy. I was thinking as a president he had the political will to make them do the needful and here we are talking about political will. Could he not have had the political will to get them to what he want them to do?
Ekpo: Ex-President Obasanjo has been saying that over the years. When he was the president there was a deadline for oil companies to stop flaring gas in Nigeria. He did not do anything about it. The deadline came and passed. Each time they kept shifting the goal post. I suspect that those in the oil sector are very strong lobbyist because the deadline was shifted during Obasanjo’s time almost twice. As we speak now we are not sure they will meet the next deadline. I can’t remember it. In Nigeria, they are still flaring gas and governments come and go. So why not use that political will to say stop. I just see it as another talk shop. We need to see action. The gas they are flaring if they use it properly to give us power maybe it would have solved a lot of problems. In Nigeria for example, power is a big problem. The oil companies flare gas why can’t that gas be used to give us power. So government said this, they come and go so we are waiting for Buhari. For the companies, it is cheaper to flare the gas and it is wrong. So we want more action than talk. Unfortunately, the way I see it, the people who are here are the elites. They don’t understand how the average person feels in Africa. They don’t have power problems, the run generate for 24 hours. They don’t know how it feels, except in Nigeria where the so-called middle class suffers. If they know how it feels, may be they will take action. So, Obasanjo has been saying that but nothing has happened. We hope that the countries that have found oil and gas will not behave like Nigeria. Countries like Uganda, Ghana, Kenya and the rest. But unfortunately, some of them have already started behaving like us like Ghana.
Realnews: Let’s talk about the theme of this annual meetings which is on “Energy and Climate Change”. Do you think what has been discussed here can help stop the effect of climate change on African countries?
Ekpo: You see, there is no question that the climate is changing and if it is not controlled it will affect all economies. My problem is that this call for green energy, years back, the developed countries did not care about pollution about environmental problems. Now it is our turn to do that, they are now saying we should have clean energy because of the climate and so on. Fine, but who will pay for it because we need money to finance a lot of development project. You are now bringing this caveat. We need all the money to manufacture, pollute the air and then clean the air. So it is like us now having the money to finance it, it will deter our development. Vice President Yemi Osibanjo just made that point at the panel discussions and I don’t know if they got it right when he asked who will clean the air. Who will pay for ensuring that the climate is what it should be because Africans don’t have the money since they are keeping us where we are. Because when they were developing and flaring all these things they knew this is causing pollution but they will tax that company. You will pay tax for doing that. Now, perhaps, what they did in the course of their development has become a global problem and now Africa that is just developing is being made to pay the price. We can no longer industrialise. So if they can pay for the cost for example, cleaning the air, to ensure that global warming is reversed or controlled then there is no problem. But right now the only pledge to make some money available. They don’t make the money available.
Realnews: This drive for renewable energy, is it not as a result of the West looking for market to sell their products?
Ekpo: You see, each time we forget that development is a struggle. We think that the West have good intention. But they too also want to solve their own problems. When the market is no longer in their continent, they go outside to look for it. It is now left for us to make sure that we negotiate to our own interest. It’s like this issue the say Africa is rising. We ask the question, rising to what when Africans are migrating to Europe. It is the same issue, they are looking for market. It is clear. So we have now to decide how we do it. I give you one example like Botswana. You know the produce diamond. They mine diamond, and over the years they have been lucky to have started their Sovereign Wealth Fund long time ago to save whenever there is a surplus. Over time Botswana now said this diamond we are given you, there are four processes to it. You take our diamond and process and send back to us. Now you will do it in Botwana. Now, you do auction for diamond in Britain, it is more expensive. Do the auction in Botswana, four times a year. Now four times a year they bring the whole world to Botswana, companies come here and do auction. Do you know what that means? That is a country thinking in a strategic manner about their resource because diamond will finish one day. So in Africa, that’s what we are supposed to do. We should not just be seen as a market. Even in the market the price of the goods we don’t even control. When the price come down we are in trouble. When the say Africa rising, we did some work to show that Africa is not rising because we are dependent on commodity price. When the price of commodity rises, countries rise but when the prices collapses countries go down. Essentially, it is market they are looking for. And it is their own interest. And you can’t blame them because they are able to have jobs. There is a lot of migration of skill in Europe to Angola, to Mozambique even from Portugal that colonised them. It is like a reverse something. It is for us to sit down and negotiate. The irony is that Africans who are like the elite are not doing the negotiation in the interest of their countries. It is in their own personal interest. So the African elite who is skilled is very selfish, very greedy. He has houses everywhere all over the world while the founding fathers didn’t do that. They got us political independence, the economic one now is a problem because they are not the once negotiating. We are now. It is our generation and we are not doing it well. It’s like the AfDB. The early founders did not envisage an AFDB like this. They are like the World Bank. Next year the annual meeting is going to New Delhi. To become AFDB president, if you don’t lobby, US, Japan, India, you can’t become. The early founders like Nkrumah and the rest said since we cannot get good concession for fund from World Bank, lMF, lets start out own bank where we can have good concession to borrow and develop the continent. It has changed; this looks more like coming to the World Bank and IMF meetings. I am not saying that they cannot get equity but do in such a way they will not have control. They don’t tell you what to do. To become president you have to lobby US, Japan, Canada, UK. You can’t try it in Asian Development Bank. They have equity but they make sure that at every point in time they have controlling shares.
Realnews: Does Africa Still have controlling shares in AfDB?
Ekpo: We have a little bit of controlling shares but we are not that united because of the rivalry between the francophone and Anglophone countries. So if you want a loan from the AfDB, the conditions are similar to that when asking for money from World Bank. Except like Nigeria where you have a Nigerian Trust fund you can use that as a leverage. So there are a lot of things that should change and we hope the current president should at least change a number of things.
Realnews: Do you he can do it?
Ekpo: At least he can try. But the way the board is constituted, it is a tall order. But he has to try. I am not saying you cannot get others to come in but let them not come and be the voice of the bank.
Realnews: Has your expectations for this annual meetings been met?
Ekpo: Well, they say energy and climate change, there are a lot of other issues that have been raised here. The seminars I have attended, there have been good papers. But I will say about 70 percent of what I expected in terms of quality papers have been met. But in terms of the way forward, what’s to be done, I have not seen that.
Realnews: What do you think should be done?
Ekpo: Well, I thought in a conference like this where you focus on energy and climate change, which has been discussed in other conferences. You say climate change for country X or Y, this is what has happened. These are the gap. We are not seeing that. Rather we have seen them rolling out data of misery.
Realnews: One of the things that were discussed here is youth unemployment. How do you see it?
Ekpo: Youth unemployment is very serious in all the countries in Africa. And they solution to it, in my view, most of them are government related but not private sector unfortunately. Private sector is the engine of growth. But they never said that they are the engine of development. It is indirectly. For the private sector, the bottom line is profit. So any incentive you give them they will not employ all of our unemployed youth. So when there is crisis in employment, like in Nigeria and rest in Africa, unemployment is a crisis and youth own is even worse, only government solve it.
Realnews: So how will government solve it?
Ekpo: Employing people. For example, in all of our country in Africa, we still have security problem. By the time you say that all the security agencies – Navy, Army, Police should employ thousands of youths you are solving the problem. A lot of people don’t like government work because they don’t pay well but it is a temporary measure. Instead of being a kidnapper or arm robber, they will go there so you take them out of the street. All our countries in Africa have investment in the Housing. If government invests massively in the housing, for all levels of income many people will be employed. If you doubt it go to a typical area where they are building houses; see how many people that are involved bricklayers, masons, architect etc. because in economics the housing sub sector is the most potent of investment which only government can do. The government can do it in several ways. The can issue bond and finance it. It can even print money and finance it. And then create, don’t downsize. If in the ministry, you need two people, make it three or four, it is temporary. That’s what government is for, the welfare of people. The private sector only helps when the economy is normal. We keep saying it all the time. We are back now in the old time when there is trouble the government solves it. When government solves it everything flows to the private sector. Again, you may not employ all the youth but when you get a sizable number. For example, some of them are trained entrepreneurs but they are not empowered. You empower those ones by the time you know it, for example, if you have 10 youths that are empowered, add another two. When they say youth unemployment is rising, don’t’ forget that in our continent these youths were trained by parents and they expected them after school to come back and help others. So, if a youth is unemployed there are so many having problems. So for me, it is a crisis and they have finally realised it but the solution is not private sector. That’s the mistake they are making. You can’t just train them to become entrepreneur, all of them, because everybody cannot become business men. In overseas or even some countries in Africa, if you are studying physics, government ensures that after you finished you will get a job because people need physicist to develop things in the economy. You get my point. I can study journalism and decide that I want to build a hospital and employ doctors to work for me. That’s business. So the emphasis on entrepreneurship to change the school curriculum is all wrong. And then we don’t plan. With youth unemployment every year more are being churned into the labour market. You are creating more universities, more tertiary institutions, big problem. Do you know that we have forgotten that people who finish primary and secondary school have a right to work. So they have been completely abandoned. It’s like you must have a degree, HND, OND to get work, which is wrong. In our time, some of us were awaiting results and we worked as clerks. So now you have left thousands and millions who finished high school and will like to work and may be later improve themselves. They don’t even count them anymore. And they are youths. You see the problem now. So I am very discouraged. To me, it is disturbing. The future looks very bleak. Even now, when government organise conferences, they don’t get youths involved. And they are the future. You remember the so-called national conference in Nigeria, it’s about the country’s future and most of the conferees were adults and you don’t get youths involved. They are not being realistic. Like the International Labour Organisation, ILO, said in Nigeria the youth unemployment is 60 percent. I am sure it’s even more. I have in my office two cartons full of CVs of people looking for job. I have twin daughters one of who finished Masters in Scotland, I can’t find her a job at my level. That means it is bad. And when it is that bad nobody is safe.
Realnews: What does this Youth Unemployment portend for Africa’s future?
Ekpo: Bleak. Except if something is done starting from yesterday. All the people that come here (AfDB Annual Meetings) are elites in quote. In South Africa, now, the kidnap girls, who have long braids; cut the braids, and sell and release her. It is sad. With our natural resources in the continent, we should not allow this to happen. We don’t manage our economy very well. By the time, we start doing that we were looking more at the macro-economic variables than the micro. We are not strategic. We say foreign investment is increasing. We have not asked are they creating jobs and in which sector. It’s portfolio investments. The foreign investors some are in oil and gas because of the high returns. But portfolio investors is that once there is problem the move their investments out. How many of them have come to build factories in the country and employ people. That’s when you decide whether there are foreign investments. And we say this anywhere we go in our own country and in the continent. They don’t want to listen.
— Jun 27, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
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