By Godwin Jarkwa/ #AriseRenewedHopeMedia
In today’s Nigeria, a growing number of young people dismiss education with a bitter refrain: “Education is a scam.” What began as a street joke has hardened into a slogan of despair. Behind it lies a painful truth, our universities keep churning out graduates in their hundreds of thousands each year while the job market remains too narrow to take them in.
The contradiction is obvious. Years spent in lecture halls often translate into years spent roaming the streets, certificates in hand but opportunities out of reach. Some wait for a decade, even two or three, still hoping for a job in their field, only to age out of eligibility or lose touch with the knowledge they once mastered. In that frustration, survival takes over. People do whatever it takes to get by, even if it means crime, a sad reality of broken social contract between Nigerians and their political leaders.
Supporters of the “scam” argument point to the sheer numbers. Every admission season, universities admit new students in droves. By graduation, the flood of degree-holders only worsens. Government offices are already bloated, the private sector too small and competitive and industries, that could absorb skilled workers into manufacturing, ICT, healthcare and engineering, remain weak, trapped by poor infrastructure and unstable policies.
Many graduates, including master’s degree holders, turn to riding Okada, ride-hailing cabs, selling items online or scrambling for scraps of content creation. Not that these trades are bad but most times they are not related with what the graduates spent years studying in school for the certificates they carry. To them, the degree looks less like a passport to prosperity and more like an expensive ticket to disappointment. They rather point to stories of school dropouts who became millionaires while graduates queued endlessly for scarce jobs that will still require their work experience and recommendation from a highly-placed person in service they never had in their family background.
Umo Eno’s ARISE Agenda: Reassuring Akwa Ibom State Graduates
In Akwa Ibom State, Governor Umo Eno is trying to break this cycle of despair. His ARISE Agenda has been deliberately structured to tell young graduates that education is not a waste but a gateway, if paired with opportunity.
On October 21, 2024, his administration launched the ARISE Youth Employment Portal, a one-stop hub where graduates can access job listings, training and even funding opportunities. Managed through an Inter-Labour Committee, it ensures fairness in hiring and pushes companies to prioritise local talents. In effect, the portal bridges the gap between certificate and workplace.
Beyond jobs, the administration has rolled out entrepreneurship empowerment programmes. Over 2,000 young entrepreneurs have received equipment, tailor machines, barber kits and shoemaking tools, along with 77 mini-buses and 31 cars to expand mobility and businesses. Grants have followed too: ₦500,000 for many beneficiaries, ₦750,000 for women-led groups while Ibom-LED trained 1,500 young entrepreneurs, 400 of them women, with startup capital and rental support. The message is clear: a degree can lead to enterprise, not just a desk job.
There are also safety nets for the unemployed. Through the ARISE relief scheme, ₦750 million has been distributed to 15,000 unemployed youths with 5,000 receiving ₦50,000 monthly stipends as they prepare for long-term opportunities. Agriculture, once dismissed as old-fashioned, is being revitalised through the Ibom Model Farms and 3,000 hectares of mechanized farming, inviting graduates into modern agribusiness with real markets provided by the Bulk Purchase Agency and others.
Meanwhile, civil servants enjoy raised wages, ₦80,000 minimum, above the federal standard, along with consistent salaries and “ENOMBER” 13th-month bonuses. Roads, ICT-equipped schools, hospitals and model schools are being upgraded to restore public service dignity.
To ensure transparency, the new Akwa Ibom State Bureau of Statistics tracks youth-focused programmes digitally while young representatives in every ward are employed by the State Government to bring grassroot voices into policymaking.
But calling education a scam is misleading. Education is not merely a path to employment. It is about sharpening the mind, broadening choices and equipping society with knowledge. A graduate may not find a white-collar job but the discipline, exposure and problem-solving ability gained from schooling remain invaluable. Across Nigeria, professionals in law, medicine, engineering and academia stand as living proof that education still pays.
The real issue lies not in education itself but in the Nigerian system that fails to pair learning with opportunity. Nations like China, Singapore and South Korea invested in both education and industry and today reap the rewards. If Nigeria fixes its industries, builds infrastructure and grows its economy, our “jobless” degrees will suddenly regain their worth. To dismiss education outright is to discard the very tool that liberates societies from poverty and ignorance.
So, is education a scam? Not quite. The scam is in the environment that fails to reward learning. The frustration of graduates is real but abandoning education is not the cure. What Nigeria needs is a deliberate shift: policies that encourage job creation, industries that absorb skills and a curriculum that prioritises creativity, technology and entrepreneurship. Until then, young people will remain trapped between the promise of education and the harshness of reality.
All these point to one lesson: education is not a scam but a stepping stone. The ARISE Agenda is showing that certificates can lead to jobs, businesses or even farms so long as governance connects learning to livelihood.
For Nigerian youths caught in the paradox of broken promises, Akwa Ibom State offers small but significant reassurances that education still matters if leaders choose to make it count. We have all we need to change the narrative.
