It was 9.30 in the morning and I was getting late for a meeting at Accra New Town. I dashed out of the house and hailed a passing taxi. Just three minutes after getting into the taxi, the driver said: “I know you. You have been in my taxi before.”  I began to think that he had probably mistaken me for another person. “There are more than two million people in Accra; so how are you sure you know me?   Where did you pick me and where did you take me?” I asked. 

The driver said he is stationed in a taxi rank behind the government Ministries. I walked past two or three taxis one morning around 11am; opened his door and sat down. I told him where I was going and he took off and dropped me in front of a story building at Adabraka, across the street from the Cinema Palace.  He was beginning to make sense, because my lawyer’s office was in the building he had described. 

I then asked: “In what year are you talking about?” He said it was in the early part of 2014. That sealed it. I relocated from Accra in the middle of 2014. “But that is eight years ago; so what made you recognize me out of the thousands of persons who have ridden in your taxi all these years?” I asked. He said “I remember you because you talked with me. You carried on a conversation with me. Passengers normally do not talk to their taxi drivers. They stop or call a taxi, hop in, pay the fare and that’s it.”  “Actually, it is dangerous to talk with people you do not know. Times have changed,” I thought to myself. 

I asked again: What did I talk about? The driver said the conversation was mostly on events in Accra; especially the city's sudden growth and development, the cost of living, and the problem of youth unemployment.  “Youth unemployment did not start recently; Bear that in mind,” I said.  “I know that. I completed technical college in the Central Region after finishing Junior Secondary School. I worked in a mechanical shop for three years, but found the job unrewarding. In 2008, my cousin asked me to come to Accra to work for him as a purchaser in his transport business. He had a fleet of buses and needed a reliable person as a purchaser of spare parts in his business. 

In 2010, the owner of a spare parts shop where I purchased some of the parts needed by my cousin told me he had a taxi for anyone who would take it on a work-and-pay basis. I was interested and told my cousin, who agreed that I should accept the offer. I was 23 years old then.  I know jobs are not easy for young men and women to come by these days. I hear them complaining each day in my taxi,” he said. 

“You have done well,” I said. “But we must all realise that youth unemployment did not start yesterday. It started a long time ago. Employment opportunities and unemployment follow the output of the school system.  My father who is well past 80 years told me that missionaries from Britain and Germany started establishing primary schools in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and other parts of the African continent in the 1840s. I read parts of that story when I was in school,” I said to him. 

I continued with the following: “The period dating from the early 1840s to 1910 was the golden age of British and French African colonies. Primary schools, secondary schools, Teacher Training Colleges and Technical-Vocational institutions were built in the colonies. 

Within those near 70 years, road construction, railways and telegraph services were started by the colonial governments. From the middle of the 1850s, African entrepreneurs had created a sufficient number of job opportunities for primary school leavers; drawing such persons away from their rural homes into the small towns that had started growing. 

From 1870, business persons from India, Lebanon, Syria and Europe set up businesses, mainly trading businesses, in the growing towns in West, East and Southern African countries. 

The establishment of secondary schools started mainly in the 1870s. This was the period when the British and the French decided to colonize African countries in which they had trading interests. From 1910, Bauxite and manganese mining started; cocoa and rubber growing efforts increased and the first banks opened. These developments offered full employment for persons who had completed primary and secondary schools. But the story started to change soon after 1910. 

For nearly forty years, 1870-1910, more than sufficient jobs were available for the youth. The employment situation, however, radically changed in the years beginning from 1910. From 1910 the output of the school system could not easily enter the jobs of their choice. 

From the years 1915 to the early 20s, unemployed youth started forming “Youth Clubs” to be able to meet and discuss social and political events of the time; and also discuss jobs availability. In Ghana, Youth clubs such as Asante Kotoko, The Ewe League, Sekondi Optimism Club, the Oguaa Akoto of Cape Coast and many others started in the 1920s. Other youth clubs and associations would also have started in other countries on the continent. Youth unemployment had become a point of agitation and frustration for young men and women. 

Apart from jobs, the youth and the educated elite were also unhappy about the colonial administration and race relations, particularly in the Civil Service system in West Africa. Consequently, the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA) was founded in 1920, bringing representatives from The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria. Racial discrimination became a topical issue to NCBWA than the problem of youth unemployment. Ghana and Nigeria seem to have become the hotbed of political agitation. 

Just ten years after the formation of NCBWA, the Gold Coast Youth Conference (GCYC) was launched by Dr. J. B. Danquah, a lawyer by profession, and other colleagues in 1929. GCYC meetings were attended by representatives of Youth Clubs, Chiefs and members of the educated elite of Ghana. The conference did not formally address the issue of youth unemployment. It required the colonial government to set up a fund for extending education; providing scholarships for farmers and professional studies. The conference also asked for a university in Ghana. It was partly due to this request that the University of Ghana and the University of Ibadan were set up in Accra, Ghana, and in Ibadan, Nigeria, in 1948. 

The colonial governments at the time continued providing infrastructural facilities such as roads and railways. But these could not provide enough job opportunities for the growing numbers of educated youth on the continent. 

The 2nd World War started in 1939 and ended in August 1945. The six years of the war provided several jobs for West Africa and East African countries.  Young men at the age of 21-25 were recruited into the British Reserve Forces and sent to places such as Burma (now Mynmar) or stationed in parts of West and East Africa. Some of them saw war outside Africa. The war stimulated agriculture for crops to feed the armed forces. Farms were therefore set up and expanded. 

Young soldiers were trained in military skills as drivers and mechanics to service army trucks and vehicles. For six years, the war created jobs for young men in West and East Africa and other overseas places where the soldiers were stationed. On recount, the number of youth who were recruited for the Second World War was only a very small percentage of the population of youth on the continent. 

African soldiers, now ex-soldiers, returned to their countries at the end of 1945 to face disillusionment. There were just no jobs. But apart from that, gratuity payments promised to the soldiers at the time of recruitment were not paid. Groups of four or five youthful ex-soldiers could sometimes be seen marching in the streets to show their valour and singing songs complaining that they had no jobs. 

Unemployment creates frustration and high tension in people. This level of frustration became the seedbed for political agitation. Names such as Wallace Johnson of Sierra Leone, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Dr. J. B. Danquah and Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in concert with Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Modibo Keita of Maii, Sekou Toure of Guinea and many others, were those who spearheaded the political struggle. 

It was easy to galvanize the youth for radical political struggle because many were unemployed and frustrated. Nkrumah referred to the employed youth as Verandah Boys and Verandah Girls; the jobless and landless youth who by force of circumstances literarily had to sleep on verandahs. 

The immediate years after independence signalled the time for nation-building.  Roads, railways, airlines, shipping, factories and many other vestiges of nationhood were started. Jobs became available for most youth across the continent. Many finances were also put into the education system: More primary schools, more secondary schools, universities, Teacher Training institutions and Technical-Vocational Institutions. Much of the finances for such national construction projects came from the bank reserves the new African governments inherited from the departing colonial governments. 

Those ten years from 1960-1970 formed the period when education in Africa faced major expansion and improvements. But for some countries, this was only a short period. Military coup d’états started with Togo in 1963, Nigeria in 1966, followed Ghana in 1966. From then on, the trend of military take-over continued till today. 

We can forget about the six years of World War 2 when some jobs became available for the youth recruited into the British Reserve Forces. For the long period, 1910 to 1970, a period of sixty years, only the ten years of 1960-1970 were the years when job opportunities were copiously created for the youth by the new African national governments. 

In effect, if we take away the ten years of post-independence national reconstruction; 1960-1970, from 1910-2022, that is 112 years, we realize that youth unemployment has been in Africa for a little over 100 years.” “My word’” said the driver. “I thought youth unemployment started 12 years ago when I first started looking for a job.”  “No, you haven’t heard the last word. No government is responsible for the youth unemployment phenomenon. But it remains a public problem. 

We should realize that the output rate of graduates from secondary and tertiary education institutions is far greater than the growth rate of industries and factories in Africa. Unless something drastic is conjured up, youth unemployment will get worse because the youth continue to form the greatest part of the populations of the African continent”. 

I reached my destination and indicated where the driver should stop after nearly one hour through the stops and traffic congestion. “I can’t believe this,” the driver said. “You better believe it,” I said in return. I paid the fare and repeated a proverb an older friend told me two years ago. “It’s better to get a little water to wash your feet rather than wait for a full bucket of water for a proper bath.”  This proverb, I believe, sums up the African belief in patience in all things. “Thank you and have a good day,” said the driver.  

“Wait a moment,” I said.  “There is also an English adage which says ‘Rome was not built in a day.’ ” This adage is different from the African proverb of waiting for a full bucket of water for proper bath. The English adage assumes a big goal, such as building a large city, an empire or a business and working at it steadily day by day. It takes time but you work at it every day.” 

And then the driver asked, “Are you a pastor or a teacher?”  “None,” I said. “I am only an ordinary parent, But I want you to understand that the big businesses our fathers and grandfathers knew; businesses that employed 200 and 300 persons, may never come back. These are times for private businesses. Follow the footsteps of your cousin. Strive for a full bucket of water, if ever possible.  God willing, I hope to see you in two or three years as the owner of three taxis or more,” I concluded. The driver said, “Thank you again.”  I got out of the taxi, shut the door, and said “Good Bye.”