Failed Government, Youths Unemployment and the Challenges of Insecurity in Nigeria: The Need for Entrepreneurial Skills Development and Citizens Investment in Small Scale Businesses

Nigerian state has been bedeviled by poverty and unemployment, one that has emerged due to
the failure of Nigerian government to perform her constitutional functions of providing her
citizenry with the basic needs of lives, especially employment through which food could be
put on the table of the masses. Unemployment ravaging the citizens of Nigeria has become
devastating, as it has grown to its climax that in the time past, senator Dino Melaiye, a senator
from Kogi west senatorial district once submitted on the flow of the house of senate that the
high rate of youth unemployment in Nigeria is sending a signal that Nigerian state is sitting on
a time bomb which could explode at any point in time if the menace is not quickly addressed.
The Minister of labor and employment Chris Ngige once posits that the unemployment rate
may increase from 23.1% to 33.5% by this year 2020. The need to addressing this issue is the
reason why this paper examines the causes of unemployment in Nigeria, and analyze the need
for the development of entrepreneurial skills, and the establishment of small-scale businesses
as the panacea to the menace of unemployment in Nigeria. The paper adopted the
diversification theory in explaining the need for Nigerian graduates to diversify from the
attitude of searching for white collar jobs only to the idea of setting up and investing in small
scale businesses. This paper examines the impact of unemployment on Nigeria and suggests
the establishment of small-scale businesses and entrepreneurial skills development as a way
to go in tackling the menace of unemployment in Nigeria. The paper adopted the secondary
method of data collection as valuable information’s and data are retrieved from the readymade
works of scholars and authors, while other information’s are gathered through the
common-sense views and knowledge of the writer.