THE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT

IN NIGERIA.

Omotosho Fatimah Olamide

030901135

INTRODUCTION

The development of indigenous manpower to serve as the propelling force for national
growth and development is no doubt a key to Nigeria’s socioeconomic and political
development. Manpower utilization could be defined as “the existence of skilled and /or
unskilled humans that need training or re-training to perform specific task in society”.
Thus, manpower development could be seen as organizational specific. This is because it
is largely a function of organizational manpower needed or job specification. That is, it
could be viewed as the adaptation of the human resources available in the country to the
needs, objectives and orientation of a given organization.

There are organizational tools that can be used to achieve manpower development. The
first method an organization has to adapt towards achieving this goal is by ensuring that a
new employee is given the best orientation of his/her job functions and environment. This
method is an integral part of recruitment exercise in that once an employee has been
appointed, it is expected that that such an employee need to be positively oriented in line
with the vision and aspiration of the organization for effective discharge of function.
Other effective tools are on-the-job training, apprenticeship and vestibule training
methods. This is a process through which knowledge and experience are acquired over
time either formally or informally. On-the –job could take different forms such as
coaching, job-rotation, in-house training and in-service training. Apprenticeship method
involves acquisition of skills through extensive practice for over a period of time by the

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trainee .Under vestibule training method, the trainee practices his skill with identical
equipment that he uses or he is expected to use at work.

However, it is important to state that the lack of adequate emphasis on manpower

development as a tool of development in Nigeria on the part of government as well as the
organized private sector could not be far-fetched from the lack of understanding of both
concepts and methods for manpower development in a Nigerian State. The focus of this
paper is to unfold problems of manpower utilization and suggesting solutions to alleviate
it in Nigeria.

CHANLLEGES FACING MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Poor Manpower Planning: Planning can be defined “as a process for providing a
frequently updated framework of information decision making, with the object of
improving the utilization of resources “ Manpower planning is the process of collecting
data about manpower, analyzing it to help the decision makers to take more rational and
applicable decisions. The data or information to be collected is usually about the supply
sources of manpower as well as the demand, which is the most important and lasting
element in the production process.

This problem is associated with the poor database that is needed for manpower planning
in Nigeria both in rural and urban centers. This problem no doubt constitutes a major
hindrance on effective manpower utilization in Nigeria. The probable future risk of
having either surpluses or shortages, or both in particular kinds of manpower skills, can
be reduced by good planning so the balance between demand and supply can be achieved
and then maintained through readjustments and reassessment of both demand and supply
sources.

Poor Reward System: In Nigeria, youths are usually underpaid for their skills because
there is excess supply of labour in the labour market. If employees are not adequately

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rewarded for their jobs, it will serve as disincentive to work and development. In quest to
get highly paid job and good working conditions, employees will switch to any kind of
job.

For instance, Nigerian lecturers are not well-rewarded relatively to other classes of labour
which makes the best brains of the university neglect the lecturing as a career and rather
engage in other labour sectors. In the long run, the country and institutions would have
lost brilliant and capable hands whose manpower would have been fully utilized to
develop country. The resultant effect is that there will be untimely change of jobs by
employees thereby eroding manpower long term development

Population Growth: The paucity and unreliability of the demographic statistics of

developing countries like Nigeria is well-known. However, although population data has
been insufficiently accurate for planning purposes, the concept and measures of
population change used by demographers in the developing countries are logically sound.
Population growth can be a result of either natural increase that is through birth, or
immigration flows from outside or inside the country. In each case a special situation can
be created which determines the manpower structure of this country .Birth control,
immigration control, internal movements control and many other similar actions can be
of great importance.

Although, Nigeria is an example of an over-populated country but there is a problem of

manpower under –utilization. Nigeria has a country suffers from unbalanced situation in
their resources because the system governing the economic activities fails to work out the
degree of balance between the different resources as well as the balance within each
individual resource.

Surplus and Shortage of Manpower: It may be mistakenly thought that Nigeria as an

over-populated country must have abundance of labour. But unfortunately Nigeria

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manpower planner does not make provision for educating the active population leading to
abundance of unskilled workers which could be interpreted as shortage of semi-skilled or
skilled workers, or both. Surplus in some skills and shortage in others may also be found.
Nigeria as a case study does have surpluses among educated labour simply because the
manpower planners did not do their job properly-they only did the part of ‘education’.
But the job of the manpower planner is not only educating or training people, but finding
suitable employment for them, otherwise they may go to work in jobs which are
irrelevant to their skills and this, of course, does mean losses and wastage. So
mobilization and utilization of the labour force through reorganizing and reconstructing
the supply sources to match the demand is an important step towards manpower
utilization.

Urbanization Crisis: This is as a result of rural-urban migration and natural population

increase. In Nigeria, rural-urban immigration is high because government developmental
policies do not give room for even development across the country. Therefore, the high
rate of increase creates urban crisis in that economic growth rate in these areas has been
much less than the population growth rates, and as a consequence of that number of
problems and difficulties have been created. With this high increase immigration to urban
areas, much human potential are not fully utilized because of overcrowding and
congestion in urban areas.

Corruption: High level of corruption in the country has been a detriment to manpower
development. The younger generations are no longer interested in human capacity
building. There is “get rich quickly” syndrome among the youths which inhibits skill
development; rather, youths prefer to engage in politics where there will be free access to
public funds.

Colonial Experience: There have been several arguments regarding the distortions in
manpower development of national growth in Nigeria as a result of colonialism which
was fashioned towards economic exploitation. The advent of colonialism led to the

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integration of the Nigerian economy into World Capitalist System thereby placing
minimum premium on labour by the colonial government no doubt has persisted in the
post-colonial Nigerian State. As a result, this problem account for a lack of adequate
attention given to labour as a critical part of the production process in Nigeria.

Poor Political Leadership: Closely related to the problem of colonial experience as a

problem of colonial experience in Nigeria is a poor political leadership which is further
deepening the problem of manpower development in Nigeria. This factor has manifested
itself in poor funding of education over the years, disparity or class in manpower
development between the rich and the poor.

OPTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

The options for effective manpower development in Nigeria could be viewed from socio-
economic and political perspectives:
1. Training and Education: There is no doubt that improvement in the quality of
people as productive agents has to be one of the main objectives of any
development plans. And “since one of the functions of educational system in a
society is to provide its work force with the abilities required for productivity,
it follows that system must be reasonably well regarded to the production
requirements of the economy. So it is not only teaching or training people to a
job-any job- but to provide them with the knowledge needed for production
requirements, and which is in our case providing useful knowledge to generate
and strengthen the economy.

2. The Ministry of Education should see to the fact that educational systems are
designed meet the requirements and future needs; the manpower planner has
to look at priorities and the resources available to decide the actions needed.
These actions will be dependent upon identifying:

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 a. The principal critical shortages of skilled manpower in each sector of the
economy, and analysis of the reasons for such shortages;
b. The surpluses, both of trained manpower as well as unskilled labour, and
reasons for the surplus;
c. The setting of forward targets for human resources development based
upon reasonable expectations of growth

In realization of this objective, the Federal Office of Statistics and Manpower

Planning Board should put all hands on deck in collecting reliable data on all
kinds of skills in the labour force present in Nigeria.

3. Wage Regulatory Body: Government should ensure that wages rates are fixed
for all labour to prevent exploitation of labour by employees. When there is
wage rate control, employees will be encouraged to devote their time to a
particular skill. The rate at which youths change jobs will be reduced and
every able-body will be interested in developing and utilizing his/her
manpower in a particular area of interest.

4. The Nigerian Directorate for Employment needs to play a greater role in

manpower utilization. The role of manpower planner is not to plan for having
adequately trained labour only, but to create suitable opportunities for them to
use their skills. The agency can also plan to narrow the gap within the
manpower structure that is between different categories, by training and
retraining schemes. These programs can be for all ranges of skills. Switching

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 certain numbers from one category to another or from sector to another is
another important job manpower planner can do to fulfill the needs.

5. In the case of Nigeria where youths have left neglected agricultural sector for
industrialized sector, the ministry in charge of youths and employment and
other relevant agencies should ensure that retraining facilities are put in place
for those who are engaged in industry and those who are left behind in the
agricultural sector to substitute the emigrant farmers. This can be done by
training the farmers to use new methods, new equipment and new seeds.
These training can benefit the whole economy through rebalancing both
industrial agricultural sectors.

6. The option of an enhanced regulatory capability on the part of government for

effective enforcement of manpower policies. This is quite indispensable based
on the need to ensure quality manpower development irrespective of sex,
class, ethnic affiliation to mention a few. This point could best be appreciated
considering the liberal nature of most government policies which tend to
snowball into elitist benefit in terms of policy outcome.

7. The need for government to be persuasive in making organizations embraces

well designed policies at improving the development of manpower in Nigeria.
This could be done both internally and externally. Internally, organizations
should be made to see reasons why a careful manpower development plan
should form part of plans and objectives for the year. As a matter of fact, the
success of organizations should not only be measured in terms of the
magnitude of profit through the adoption of outdated personnel administration
technique, but, basically on the contribution of the organization in enlarging
the confidence of its workers through manpower development.

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 The external factor involves the contribution of organizations to the
development of manpower through financial support meant to boost adult
education, vocational education, and specialized research institutes.

8. Fight against Corruption: Government should act more on campaign against

corruption. EFCC and ICPC should ensure that people found guilty are
punished severely. Law should not be above anyone, no matter class or tribe.
With minimal level of corruption in Nigeria, more attention will be paid to
manpower development as that will be the major component of economic
growth in the country.

RELEVANCE OF MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

a. Economic Development: The relevance of manpower development in

Nigeria could be related to economic development. This is because
manpower development captures the actual meaning of development in
that it is people centered. Moreover, it involves the building of capacity
and harnessing the state’s human resource which constitute a sine-qua-non
for development.
b. Political Stability: There is no doubt that a country which fails to
adequately develop her manpower would be doing so at the expense of her
socio-economic and political stability. The youths whose skills are not
developed are the objects of political unrest.
c. Poverty Alleviation: It has been argued that effective poverty alleviation
scheme must involve the development and utilization of local problems.
Thus, manpower development is central to solving the present problem of
poverty in Nigeria.

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 CONCLUSION

This paper have been able to relate what could be referred to as manpower
underdevelopment to socio-economic and political problems in Nigeria by
looking at such factors as poverty, political instability and economic
underdevelopment. Against this background, it is important to conclude that
manpower development as a concept and method should be used as a tool for
development in Nigeria.

REFERENCES:

H.S. Parnes: “Manpower Analysis in Educational Planning” [in: H.S. Parnes ‘

Planning Education for Economic and Social Development’, Paris O.E.C.D 1964, pp73-
80]
G.M. Meier, “Leading issues in Economic Development”, 3rd ed, Oxford 1976, pp.532-3
Lawal MM 2006. Manpower Management: A Hand book for Personnel Managers and
Students of Administration.

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