The Character of Students in Nigeria during Covid-19 Pandemic -By Aliyu Idris

It is clear that students from various corners nationwide adopted the spirit of business spick and span.

There has been a teeming of entrepreneurial status, adverts, posts, all over the social media with the maxim “DM for price”, I salute fellow students for venturing into entrepreneurship thanks to the coronavirus pandemic for making most of our students entrepreneurs.

With the closure of schools and tertiary institutions entrepreneurship has recorded a high increase in participants, which are mostly students venturing into it.

Most of the students are engaging in varieties of trades and other commercial activities, like farming, cryptocurrency, POS transactions, learning of skills and handworks such as tailoring, bricklaying, welding, computer literacy etc. In order not to remain idle, unproductive, the students are waking up from the lousy sleep looking for money to and fro, after going through a lot of frustrations due to the pandemic and the unending Federal Government Vs. ASUU saga, which has been halting and befalling on our country’s tertiary education precisely university education.

Based on surveying the top three social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp), during the three phases of lockdown, the amount of expert and novice entrepreneurs we have gotten is enough to validate that students during this time of pandemic woke up in search of ways to earn money, which is a good gesture.

Some of these students do not want schools to resume for some reason and because they are earning and saving money through their businesses and other commercial activities, while some are craving for school resumption.

I opine that if students and Nigerians can develop spirit of entrepreneurship, unemployment would become history.

We should abandon our thought that we will all get employed by the government, Government cannot employ all graduates and on several occasions, the expenses are gargantuan while the salary is meagre to sustain one for a month rather than ending in debts.

Remember “We need money to live, but we don’t live for the sake of money”.

May almighty Allah (God) bring an end to the ASUU strike, May we get back to our institutions and bless the businesses we do. Amen.

Aliyu Idris is an entrepreneur, one of the founders of the first indigenous literary club in Jimeta-Yola metropolis named “Sunshine Literary Club Yola”.

Some of his other articles appeared on this site (www.opinionnigeria.com) and can be accessed through the below links

1. https://www.opinionnigeria.com/jimeta-youths-today-by-aliyu-idris/

2. https://www.opinionnigeria.com/the-culture-of-secondary-school-reunion-past-and-present-by-aliyu-idris/?amp

3. https://www.opinionnigeria.com/nigerian-independence-day-patriotism-and-disloyalty-by-aliyu-idris/

He can be reached via email @ aliyuidris063@gmail.com.