Recently, Dangote Group
announced that it received a staggering 13,000 applications from
graduates for employment as truck drivers. Of the 13,000 applications
received for the Graduate Executive Truck Driver positions, there were 6
Ph.D, 704 Masters and over 8,460 Bachelor degree holders.
Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said that the company only needed 100 drivers, but received the overwhelming applications.
Vanguard
reports that at a mentorship meeting of the World Bank Youth Forum
recently, Mr Dangote said that most of the applicants were from
reputable universities and had the needed quality.
“All these things are verifiable,
and they all graduated from reputable institutions which is
satisfactory; and our plan is to eventually make them self dependent.
“Despite the fact that the drivers
get trip allowances on each trip along with their salaries, the
arrangement is that they will own the trucks at no interests or
repayments after they must have reached 300,000 kilometres, which is
about 140 trips from Lagos to Kano and a hard working driver can
complete in two years, while lazy ones can take maximum of four years.”
When Dangote Group first made the
announcement for graduate drivers, there were speculations that the job
came with a juicy monthly salary of N500,000. Whether this is true or
not, it didn’t change the fact that the job position was still for a
truck driver and I didn’t think so many people would be interested in
it. But I was so wrong. 8,460 Bachelor degree holders, 704 Masters
Degree holders and 6 PhD holders is definitely an overwhelming amount.