The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has disagreed with President Goodluck Jonathan’s New Year message on job creation, saying unemployment is ‘still a disaster’.
The union called on the government to come up with realistic self-assessment.
In a statement made available to Channels Television, the Vice President of the union, Mr Isa Aremu, insisted that there was a gap between government’s declared intention and reality.
“The Federal Government should avoid over simplistic self-assessment on critical naughty issue of job creation as contained in the President’s New Year message,” the statement read.
The NLC in its 2014 message proclaimed that high open unemployment of 50 per cent is a “ticking time bomb for peace, security and social cohesion in the country”.
The union said: “Unemployment is a national disaster. We must name it as a disaster so that we can shame and tame it through aggressive public and real private sector job creations. Indeed we have already witnessed enough unemployment disasters in 2013.
“Millions turned out for few thousands job advertisements and placements. Many Nigerian graduates have all the degrees namely B.Sc, B.A, M. Sc, PH.D but they lack the real thing, JOBS! Many applicants have died through interview stampede.
“In 2013, for instance, the Senate has blown the lid on how top managers of 13 Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) colluded with outsiders to run illegal cash-for-job rackets in their organisations.
“The affected MDAs included Ministry of Interior, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), National Examination Council of Nigeria (NECO), Joint Admission and Matriculation Board(JAMB), Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Nigeria Meteorological Institute. Others are Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC ), the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC),” the union’s vice chairman said.
He pointed out that the job racketeering going on in most ministries and government agencies are indicators to the unemployment in the labour market in general.
Mr Aremu pointed out that there was the additional issue of under-employment, citing the ugly picture of millions of youths hawking recharge cards, banana, motorcycles (Okada) and orbit chewing gums and other forms of precarious works must give way to decent value adding skill acquiring jobs in 2014.
“Given the persistent crisis of electricity supply, high costs of borrowing, acknowledged addictive waivers for non-productive activities by the Federal Ministry of Finance, crude oil theft, dumping and smuggling of cheaper goods into the country, it is debatable if as many as 1.6 million new jobs were created across the country in 2013 as claimed by the government.
“The claim of providing 1.6 million jobs in the last 12 months, if it is true, is a far cry when compared to as many as 58 million open unemployed figure,” the union stressed.
Mr Aremu cautioned the Federal Government to be more realistic in its measurement of Nigeria’s unemployment situation.
After a decade of jobless growth in recent times, President Jonathan has commendably affirmed commitment to all inclusive job-led growth. 2013 Budget commendably was based on the theme, “Fiscal Consolidation with Inclusive Growth” with the President underscoring the need to balance growth with jobs creation.
It is also encouraging that 2014 national budget which is now before the National Assembly specifically singled out job creation and inclusive growth as an objective.
Mr Aremu called on President Jonathan to initiate a bipartisan national job summit as a way of overcoming the scourge of unemployment which will involve collaboration between the Federal and States governments, private and public sectors, workers and employers of labour.
“With unfinished development agendas in all sectors of the Federation what is urgently needed is a working Nigeria not an idle crisis ridden Nigeria.
“The National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) aimed at re- industrializing Nigeria and diversifying the economy into sectors such as agro-processing, light manufacturing, and petrochemicals should be implemented,” Mr Aremu said.
He commended the government on the success story of the backward integration in cement sector and called for a replication of the achievement in all other sectors.
Source:channels tv/the wills
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