How we Became Unemployed By Seun Onigbinde

There was a time in this country when telephone was a prime luxury. My Dad lived in Lagos and only one Mr Ade owned a telephone line 825037 on the street. So I called Lagos from Ibadan hoping my dad will be around and someone hadn’t padlocked the phone. But we are witnesses of rapid change in our life as a result of boom in the telecomm sector. How in over ten years we have moved from an abysmal 400, 000 lines to 83 million lines? It is to the credit of Olusegun Obasanjo and Ernest Ndukwe that we have seen this boom but that they have left NITEL to stink is a matter for another day. I am concerned with the value chain analysis of the telecoms sector and the impact on jobs.


When the telecoms sector came in, there was massive boom in banking and structuring facilities for them (jobs), then you have to print recharge cards (jobs). Someone has to distribute recharge cards along the retail and wholesale level (jobs). I have more than seven spots on my streets that sell recharge cards on my phone if we extrapolate that nationwide that will equal millions of jobs. Not neglecting that I can use my ATM, mobile or web because someone sits the server end (jobs). Then the companies have to do advertising, network expansion through local contractors, excavates the sites, cleaners, security agents to man offices and masts (jobs), someone imports telecoms equipment, there is a clearing and forwarding agent, then someone starts a telecomm training center and employs an engineer. MTN thinks of Who wants to be a millionaire contracts it to an event manger (jobs), event manager guy looks for ushers, skilled cameraman, animation experts. Can you ever think of how many schools have been built, CSR projects and jobs such as customer service officer, tower riggers, mobile app developers, network engineer, phone retailers and much more? These were lost jobs of the past when we were obsessed with NITEL but a simple government policy backed by law made this happen.


Now let’s take the analysis of the oil that we have and don’t refine, the land we own that we don’t till or the iron that we have and can’t make steel. With facts I am sure of, it is estimated that, about US$910mn, on a monthly basis, was expended to import refined petroleum product in 2010. In the same year, the country earned an estimated average monthly income of US$3.5b, translating that about 26% of total oil earnings for the year goes out of the economy to settle the purchases of refined petroleum product! Why would our last refinery be built in the early 80s? Why would after the firesale of OBJ technically deficient refineries, Yaradua reversed it and we still have not moved an inch to building even cottage or modular refineries.


You extract oil and government takes full taxes on the oil its people would use. Then you pay a foreign shipping line to take it to Ivory Coast or anywhere and then the foreign government takes all the taxes and duties for the import. The refineries get the oil refined but will surely do it with a profit (the cost to be borne by Nigerians). Rather than we profit from the residue of oil needed by plastics, petrochemical and other allied industries, we pay the shipping company back to bring only petrol, kerosene and diesel separately back to us. Then our customs and others take full import duties charges at our ports. When oil fluctuates due to the madness of Ghaddafi, the costs of subsidies rise as well for Nigerians. Rather than us build lasting structures for refining, we create a short circuit founded on patronage and about N785bn was estimated to have been spent on petroleum subsidy in 2010. At very export of the crude oil, we have also exported direct and indirect jobs. We sold the job of the fresh engineering graduate, the nimble accountant, the KPMG auditor, the recharge card seller, the canteen woman, the technician with three kids in school.