The CV is polished. The outfit is pressed. The hope is high. Yet the response is always the same: “We regret to inform you…” or worse, silence. Every young Nigerian looking for work knows this storyline too well. But here is the plot twist nobody wants to admit, it is not because there are no jobs in Nigeria. It is because the jobs that exist and the skills young people have are living in two completely different realities.
And that gap is not a mistake. It is a system.
Nigeria Is Not Out of Jobs, It’s Out of Job-Ready Talent
The Unemployment Story We Do Not Tell Enough
We hear that 33 percent of Nigerians are unemployed. We hear that millions of graduates enter the labour market every year. But what we do not hear enough is this: thousands of job roles stay empty even while young people are desperate to work. Employers are posting vacancies repeatedly because the people applying do not fit the skills they want. That is not a labour shortage, it is a skill mismatch, and it is the quiet crisis holding the country back.
Daily Trust recently highlighted this strange truth. Companies are hiring but cannot find “job-ready” candidates. Not because Nigerians are not intelligent, but because the education system is not training people for the work that actually exists. We are graduating people for a labour market that stopped existing years ago.
Why It Feels Like a Setup
Most Nigerian graduates were trained to chase certificates, not competence. They spent four years cramming theory, not four months working with real industry tools. Then they enter the job market and find out employers want experience before they even give them a chance to gain experience. That is the loop. That is the frustration.
Add the B.Sc and HND divide, and the situation gets worse. A study exposed how the discrimination against polytechnic graduates is killing technical and vocational education, which is exactly the kind of education the country actually needs to fill industrial and technical jobs. We keep saying youths should “learn skills”, yet we still rank skills below degrees. The system wants skilled workers, but the same system refuses to respect skilled education. Confusing, yes. But also intentional.
Everyone Is Complaining, But Few Are Fixing Anything
Schools are teaching outdated theory. Employers are demanding magic-level experience. Government is pushing TVET but still treating vocational graduates like second-class citizens. And young people are stuck in a frustrating middle where they are told to “work harder” while the system keeps moving the goalpost.
Meanwhile, jobs exist in tech, energy, logistics, construction, agriculture, digital services and creative sectors. But the pipeline between training and opportunity is broken. That is why people and up with certificates that do not translate to cash flow or career mobility.
But There Are Pockets of Change
Some people are not waiting for the system to wake up. A feature on John Amhanesi shows a different approach: instead of treating young people as helpless jobseekers, he treats them as contributors and creators. His model connects youth directly to opportunity, not through motivational quotes but through real programs, real training, and real partnerships that move people from “potential” to “paid”.
Across Nigeria, more startups and agencies are adopting this kind of model. Skills over certificates. Projects over theories. Competence over classroom ranking. It is slow, but it is shifting the culture.
What Needs To Actually Change
Here is the uncomfortable truth: unemployment will not reduce if we only create more jobs. The jobs must match the skills, and the skills must match the future. That means:
- Schools need to align curriculum with industry needs. Nobody should still be learning Windows 7 and PowerPoint 2003 in 2025.
- Companies must stop demanding three to five years of experience for entry-level roles. Test skills, not years survived.
- Government must finally enforce degree parity and stop pretending HND discrimination is “not that serious”.
- Youth development models should include apprenticeship pathways, digital upskilling, paid internships and industry-backed certification, not just more seminars and slogans.
Young Nigerians are not lazy, unskilled or uninterested. They are simply trying to build careers in a country that has not updated its operating system.
The Real Question Now
Nigeria does not have a youth problem. It has a system problem that refuses to trust its own talent. The jobs are there. The young people are ready. The only missing link is the bridge that connects both.
So as the rest of the world invests in building human capital, we have a choice: keep exporting our brightest or finally build a country where they do not need to run.
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