“When you hear about Boko Haram, that is one of the symptoms, when you
hear about banditry and IPOB, it is one of the symptoms of jobless
people. So, for me, the President has decided that we must fight
unemployment. "
Dr. Chris Ngige, Nigeria's labour and employment minister, says the
plague of Boko Haram, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and
bandits in Nigeria is a symptom of jobless people.
“When you hear about Boko Haram, that is one of the symptoms, when you
hear about banditry and IPOB, it is one of the symptoms of jobless
people. So, for me, the President has decided that we must fight
unemployment. We have to fight because the indices are terrible and
that does not call for cheers.
“We have to decide and wear our thinking cap and take our country away
from the doldrums. The President is committed to recreating the middle
class in Nigeria. He is committed to lifting at least 100 million
people out of poverty and the only way if for our economy to improve,"
he explained.
According to Ngige, President Muhammadu Buhari is committed to lifting
100 million people out of poverty.
The minister added, “What we are here to do his national service.
Anybody who is a minister of the federal republic is on national
service. Most of the jobs we did in the ministry are to prevent job
loss, especially in the oil industry. We have seen the symptom called
unemployment, which is very visible.
“When our economy improves, we would deal a big blow to poverty,
social insecurity and also the insecurity of lives and property. We
have to make our country a better place because we cannot run away
from that. We all have a collective responsibility.
"We have a situation now where you have the topmost rich who are very
rich and those at the bottom. Even down there at the bottom, you still
have people who cannot be compartmentalized into the middle class.
“Those who are work in Nigeria, the government is trying its best. We
have many programmes that have kept people at work. We have refused
redundancy being declared, we are fighting casualization and we are
not happy with contract appointment.
"We don't want contract appointments in the private sector. We want
people given their jobs with full benefits.”