Nigeria : Ph.D Holders As Truck Drivers – Fallout of Government’s Unseriousness?

More knocks than commendation have continued to trail the recent revelations that of the 13,00 applications received, six Ph.D, 704 Masters and over 8,460 Bachelor degree holders applied for the Graduate Executive Truck Driver of Dangote Group of Companies. According to the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, most of the applicants are from reputable universities and our plan is to eventually make them self dependent. The drivers will get trip allowances on each trip along with their salaries, and will own the trucks at no interests or repayments after they must have reached 300,000km, (about 140 trips from Lagos to Kano) within two to four years. Despite these pecks attached to the job, concerned stakeholders believe that more still needs to be done by government to create employment and the enabling environment for the organised private sector to employ more people.

In his reaction, VC, Bells University of Technology, Ota, Ogun State, Professor Isaac Adeyemi, called for the need to evaluate the PhDs. “Several schools offer PhD programmes, but what is the quality of the PhD, how do they run their post-graduate programmes, in what fields and where? Assuming they obtained the PhDs from reputable institutions and in relevant areas, have they sought employment in the universities, polytechnics, colleges of education etc.” continued