By: Habeeb Olokooba
Similar to a ghost at Elminia Junction, torn between going to Cape Coast or pleading with Elminia, as portrayed in Ama Atta Aidoo’s piece, so is the mind of a victorious university graduate.
Graduation! Ah well, that too isn’t bad. But who’s a graduate? What sort of creature is it? Why should I have supposed that mere graduation is a passport to happiness?” (Eulalie Rush in the play Dilemma of a Ghost) This is the situation outside the campus walls.
The question arises after the gleaming sign-out day. Yes, we know the “four years don waka,” and you can’t wait to hang that undergraduate vest once and for all. But, sister, what are you up to? What are your plans after leaving this trench? Hope you are aware. Allowances will stop, and food from home might stop too. These are some of the thoughts haunting the minds of fresh graduates whose parents look up to them.
Parents who have invested in them are now waiting for the dividends of their investment. Some friends will be fixed because their parents have their jaws on the fat part of the Nigerian bone or they know someone who can fix their wards.
While the above are exceptions, the focus of this write-up is on the graduates, whose parents count on support from home. For you, my brother, it’s God and the skills you’ve acquired along the line.
A lecturer once told his students in a viral video, “Hope you know? This certificate You are chasing will make you end up a miserable Job seeker?” The Class was silent. And that’s what the truth does, it guilt-traps you, by taking Your words from you. While the man might be right, there are exceptions; Some graduates will get fixed, some will venture into business, some are already working, God will fix some by His grace and the majority will Flock the Streets, seeking jobs desperately.
This is the situation in Nigeria today. The labor market is not just competitive; it can be deadly and frustrating at the same time. This was not the case in the 1960’s. Graduates of those days had jobs waiting, the percentage of elites back then was not just relatively minute, but they also commanded respect.
With thousands of graduates with the class of degree you just bagged, how sure are you of your ability to bag money? How sure is your chance in the labor market of today? Life after school places you in the wilderness regardless of the class of your degree. Confused.