Nwapa condemned the government's decision to allocate jobs to foreign business partners, particularly in the oil and gas sector, despite Nigeria's youth unemployment rate surpassing 41%.
Francis Nwapa, a revolutionary activist, has condemned the Nigerian ruling elite's decision to allocate available jobs to foreign business partners as absurd, especially when youth unemployment in the country has surpassed 41%.
Nwapa condemned the government's decision to allocate jobs to foreign business partners, particularly in the oil and gas sector, despite Nigeria's youth unemployment rate surpassing 41%.
SaharaReporters on Friday reported that PENGASSAN President Festus Osifo had criticised the influx of expatriates, mostly Indians, taking over low-level jobs, violating the expatriate quota system.
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Osifo made these remarks at the Energy and Labour Summit in Abuja, highlighting the blatant abuse of the system.
Realising the issue at hand, Nwapa expressed his view about the report on Sunday, expressing his disapproval. He pointed out the hypocrisy of encouraging Nigerian youths to pursue entrepreneurship as a solution to the country's industrialisation failures and job shortages.
Nwapa criticised the political elites for reserving lucrative jobs in the oil and gas sector for their relatives and foreign partners, while relegating the children of the poor to menial jobs with exploitative working conditions, such as teaching, police, military, and road safety roles.
He said, "What makes this worse is that this lamentation of Indians taking over jobs in Nigeria oil sector is coming from a man who double as PENGASSAN President and Trade Union Congress (TUC) President, Festus Osifo, who has proven to be an elitist- bureaucrat occupying topmost workers union like PENGASSAN and TUC.
"He does not only have the power to win concessions for Nigerian workers through struggle but also to end anomalies like casualization, deregulation, and violation of workers’ rights in the oil sector."
The activist explained that Osifo has proven to be a puppet of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) regime, noting that while Nigerians marched on the streets across the country during the #EndBadGovernance struggle, he and the unions he headed never gave solidarity let alone mobilise rank and file workers to join the struggle.
He added, "In the wake of the attack on Labour House by the Tinubu regime to intimidate NLC leadership, it took Festus Osifo 48 hours to issue a statement after much criticism from activists.
"It's also important to note that despite the abduction of activists and continued detention of protesters across the country by the police and Department of State Services (DSS), alongside invitation of NLC president by the police on trump-up charges, Osifo’s leadership has not issued a statement in condemnation of the Tinubu regime.
"These actions are enough ground for workers in these unions to declare Festus Osifo leadership persona non grata, and commence process of his removal for failure to represent the interest of workers and oppressed layers of the society.”
"We call on workers to join us in the demand for immediate and unconditional release of Michael Adaramoye Lenin, Sodiq Mosiu, Eleojo Opaluwa, Angel Innocent and the over 1,420 protesters arrested and are currently in detention in different facilities across the country," the statement partly read.