The Prevailing Economic Challenges in Nigeria by Ishowo Malik Ayomide

By: Ishowo Malik Ayomide.

We all understand that in Nigeria we are currently faced with so many challenges too numerous to mention, and one of the major challenge faced in Nigeria is “Poverty”. While some people will say bad leadership, others will say unstable electricity, lack of basic amenities , and still others would say poor infrastructure, hunger, unemployment, starvation, disease and many more just too numerous to mention.

It’s quite sad and unfortunate that so many homes and families in Nigeria are currently battling with this aghast challenge, in which appears to be a great challenge to them and their children.

However , the major cause of the current economic problem faced especially in Nigeria is the problem of “Recession”, I think. Recession is a period of negative economic growth, a decline in the size of the economy. It evidently add to the problems of inequality and unemployment, and one of the problem of recession is that, it can later create a negative spiral, when demand falls, firms lay off workers. The unemployed have less money to spend causing further falls in demand, and that can even lead to some health Issues/Crises as depression, anxiety and even high blood pressure as the case may be.

However, unemployment as distinctively been a critical economic problem, in not only Nigeria, but in so many advanced economies. One of the principal authors of unemployment is swings in business cycle. A fall in demand for goods and service during a recession, causes people to be laid off and demoralized, and this is mostly because of the depressed state of the economy, there is always an imbalance between demand and supply of most workers in the economy. So Unemployment usually comes up in an hard situation like this.

Unemployment can also be caused by rapid changes in labour markets, for an example, unskilled workers unable to gain employment in a high tech economy.

Unemployment, evidently is a major challenge, yes, it is. This is because it is a waste of resources, but more significantly, it usually leads to very high personal costs, such as stress, alienation, depression, low income and feelings of failure as I said earlier.

Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid of employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the reference period.

According to the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO)also, there were 172 million people worldwide (or 5% of the reported global workforce) without work in 2018, and evidently, we are faced by this serious problem at the moment. O Lord!

In Nigeria, we have so many contemporary issues we are currently facing and battling with. Some of the social problems we are facing is terrorism, corruption, prostitution, theft, rape, ritual killings, militancy, area boy syndrome, rigging of election, examination malpractices, stealing, truancy and even kidnapping and several other social vices too numerous to say.

However, what are contemporary issues and social problems? Contemporary Issues in my own opinion are happenings or challenges that are currently affecting many people in the society. While social problems could be described or said as those social vices that came about as a result of urbanization, development of cities, increase in human population, interaction among people of different social background, different ethnic groups, contact with foreign cultures, use of electronic media etc. And in a real sense of thinking all these social problems are all the problems we are evidently facing in Nigeria.

May Almighty God intervene.

ISHOWO, Malik Ayomide