Post by Oluwatosin Olusola Adesina (@Alasoala)

The recent issues around youth unemployability and Employers’ greediness as mentioned by certain employers and an aggrieved youth reflects one of the deepest structural contradictions in contemporary Nigeria. It is an economy that simultaneously complains of unemployment and unemployability, while businesses themselves struggle under a hostile economic environment. The issue is not singular, it is systemic. It sits at the intersection among education, productivity, governance, incentives, institutional weakness, and the changing structure of global capitalism. Nigeria’s crisis is not simply that graduates are unemployable. Nor is it merely that employers are greedy. The deeper issue is that the economic system itself has become weak at converting human potential into productive value.
The educational system produces credentials faster than competencies, the economy creates fewer quality jobs than the labor force requires, businesses seek survival before expansion, workers seek survival before productivity, and government struggles to provide enabling conditions. The result is mutual distrust between labor and employers. Yet within this crisis lies opportunity; the youths who will thrive will likely be those who combine theory with practice, master technology, understand business realities, build adaptable skills, think globally, and continuously reinvent themselves within changing economic conditions.
That is the real challenge before Nigeria today.
Let me break it down
The comments made by Aliko Dangote and the CEO of Moniepoint should not merely be interpreted as insults directed at Nigerian graduates. Rather, they expose a long-standing institutional crisis concerning the relationship between education, labor markets, and production systems in Nigeria. At the same time, the frustration expressed by young Nigerians is also legitimate. Many employers demand world-class productivity while offering compensation that does not reflect inflation, transport costs, housing realities, food prices, or the psychological burden of survival in an unstable economy. Therefore, both sides are reacting to real pressures. The challenge is that each side often sees only its own suffering.
1. The Structural Crisis of the Nigerian Economy
The Nigerian economy today is characterized by several mutually reinforcing problems:
i. High inflation;
ii. Currency depreciation.
iii. Energy instability
iv. Weak infrastructure.
v. Rising unemployment and underemployment.
vi. Declining real wages.
vii. Low industrial productivity.
viii. Weak educational-industrial linkage.
ix. Policy inconsistency.
x. High cost of doing business.
These conditions shape both employers and workers. For employers, production costs have risen dramatically: diesel prices, electricity costs, logistics costs, foreign exchange volatility, import dependency, regulatory uncertainty. For instance, a manufacturer in Lagos today may spend more on self-generated power than on actual production inputs. Businesses therefore attempt to minimize labor costs because labor becomes one of the few adjustable variables remaining.
Meanwhile, workers face: rising transport costs, expensive accommodation, food insecurity, poor healthcare, limited social protection, and weak purchasing power. Thus, workers interpret low salaries as exploitation. Employers interpret demands for higher wages as economically unrealistic within current business conditions.
Both perceptions contain truth.
2. The Unemployability Debate: What Does It Really Mean?
The phrase “graduates are unemployable” is often poorly framed. Most Nigerian graduates are not intellectually incapable. The real problem is that the structure of training differs from the structure of production. The Nigerian educational system remains heavily: Theoretical, Examination-driven, Certificate-oriented, Memory-based, Detached from industry realities. Students often learn definitions without applications, theories without systems, concepts without tools, principles without execution frameworks.
For instance, a graduate may know the definition of accounting but cannot use Excel efficiently, ERP systems. financial modeling tools, data visualization software, industry workflows. Also, an economics graduate may know Keynesian theory but cannot analyze business data, build forecasts, interpret dashboards, use econometric software, write policy briefs, and conduct market intelligence.
This creates a translation gap between knowledge and productive application.
3. The Nature of Modern Labor Markets
Globally, labor markets have changed fundamentally. The old economy rewarded degrees, certificates, formal qualifications, while the modern economy increasingly rewards problem-solving ability, adaptability, communication, technological competence, analytical thinking, productivity, learning speed, creativity, and systems thinking. This is why companies increasingly ask “What value can this person create immediately?” Employers today are under

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