The Environment

Flipping through the pages of the things that pass for newspapers in Nigeria, you will find at least one mention of unemployment as one of the greatest challenges facing Nigerians. It is apparently common knowledge that of the 100,000 or so university graduates every year, no more than 20% will get jobs in the formal sector. The situation is even worse for the semi-skilled and unskilled sectors of the job market.

The Standard Experience

As you can see there is a severe imbalance of demand and supply in this market as there are not enough jobs to go around. This results in a serious downward pressure on wages for most positions in Nigeria. For example an entry level lawyer earns about as much as a driver in Lagos – between N25 and N40K a month. Another profession where schooling does not amount to much is medicine where most trained doctors might earn 50 – 60K a month if they are lucky.

The Select Few

However there are some jobs that pay well by Nigerian standards. These jobs are concentrated in 4 main industries – Oil & Gas, Telecoms, Financial Services and Consulting. These jobs are coveted like nothing else, if you have ever seen the picture of the Intercontinental Bank test that caused a stampede, you will know what I mean. Starting salary in these areas goes from between N150 and N500 K a month.

The Expatriates

In recent times, the trickle of returnees in previous years has become a bit of a gush and is expected to become a flood in the near future. According to the scuttlebutt, these individuals with their foreign accents tend to get the pick of the job market upon their return. This for the most part is true, however it is not true because employers think that phonee livens up their workplaces. I think it is true because of the perception (sometimes mistaken) that foreign peeps need less training than domestic peeps and Nigerian companies are generally adverse to training (even though this is becoming less true). Ironically the end of the expat free ride is imminent because a good number of people in hiring positions these days are expats themselves and they are not as moved by a shiny degree from foreign u as people may have been in the past.

Conclusion

Ultimately the good news is that there is upward pressure on wages, and not just in the Select Few industries. There is poaching competition going on in most industries and this increases the pay of even the non-poached. I would guess that in a few years we will mostly be complaining about the gap between skilled and unskilled labor. No longer will a lawyer earn less than the driver that takes her to work.

The latest movie to raise the ire of the Christian faithful is the adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. Following the footsteps of Dogma and The Da Vinci Code, The Golden Compass has spawned protests, pointed criticisms, and facebook groups advocating a boycott of the movie.

Christians have a problem with The Golden Compass because of its take on Christian Theology. Well actually with the trilogy’s take on Christian theology. The first book is a little light on the whole exposition of story thing. The trilogy is a thinly disguised “what if” tale about the rebellion in heaven and following events. However it is not like a Disney retelling of classic stories a la Aladdin and co, it’s more like Wicked, which turns the original version of events on its head. Now think about what a retelling of the rebellion in heaven reads like when the events are turned around. Also think about how a devout Christian would feel about such a retelling.

However the whole furor accompanying the movie’s release reminded me of the effect that occurs when a learned Historian has a debate with a holocaust denier. There is an instant credibility given to the denier simply because he is on stage with the historian. It’s like “wow they had to get this learned man to rebut him.” In the same vein I honestly think that it would have been better for the churches to have ignored the whole thing rather than make a big fuss over it.

There is still the valid argument that Christians should not stand for blasphemy against their God. After all Muslims would not sit idly by and turn their religion upside down; there will be a fatwa pronounced somewhere by day’s end. Also there is the feeling that Christianity always seems to be a target of the atheists; after all no one writes books about Buddha saying that he was really a charlatan who maybe did magic tricks (well apart from Christians :D).

However in the pluralistic societies that the movie is being released in, there is nothing Christians can do to stop the release of the movie, and so all the protests do is raise the profile of the movie. It’s like that group on facebook that starts, “facebook must shut down the group…” I wouldn’t even have heard of the other group if people didn’t get all offended and start a group that gave the other group more popularity than it would have ever gotten otherwise.

In closing I suppose I am saying that even though the tendency is to want to react, the very nature of the reaction seems to be counterproductive. Judging by the certainty of the protests, I’m guessing that most people do not feel that way. Or if they do, it does not affect their decision to protest. There might be something I’m missing, and if this is the case please feel free to set me straight in the comments.

That’s right. Exam over, back in Naij, back at work, brief vacation finally over. No more will there be twice a week blogging, the former regularly scheduled daily blogging will resume. I know you are all excited. I will not be blogging about my trip to jand in the whole this is what I did style, but two of the posts of the four this week were conceived on said trip. So without further ado – here is the schedule for this week:

Tuesday

On Golden Compass and Christianity

Wednesday

On Jobs in Naij

Thursday

On Babes Blocking Boys

Friday

TBD