By Ifeoma Ikem
President of the Association of Micro Entrepreneur of Nigeria (AMEN),Prince Saviour Iche has reacted to the recent interview granted to Roots television station by the Minister For Labour and Employment Dr. Chris Ngige, on white-collar jobs no longer available, young Nigerians should return to the farm.
According to him, ‘this means a total failure on the side of the Minister and this administration, the minister is confused, he doesn’t know what to do any longer in a country where we have approximately 62% of unemployed youth.
He described the current situation of rising kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery, terrorism and insecurity on the country to have a link with youths unemployment.
“The Nigerian youths are not lazy, they are ready to work but no job, like the saying goes an idle man is the devil’s workshop.
“Imagine a 14yr old planning on how to engage in fraud and ritual, it calls for urgent attention so what the Minister is telling the Nigerian youth, those in school and those who are expecting to be employed when they graduate is that they should not even waste their time to apply for white collar jobs.
“Since there is no white collar jobs for them and you want them to go into farming there is nothing wrong in it but the question we are going to ask you as a minister, what is happening to the present farmers in Nigeria how many of them are still on their farms.
Iche lamented that many of them have thrown in the towels because of the clashes between Farmer’s and herdsmen which many have been killed, raped and kidnapped.
“If I may ask are you telling the youths to go into farming so as to be killed ? Your statement shows that you have failed as a minister and the best thing for you to do is to resign and vacate the position so that someone who can turn around your failures can come in.
“Your are telling the youths to go into farming what will attract them to go into farming, what did you put in place that will make them to farm? we know farming is a good business but the best thing the government could have done now is to look inward and go through their local manufacturers to start producing something.
He pointed out some of the promises the present administration made during their campaign that Nigeria youths will be collecting stipend of five thousand Naira(N5000) monthly, the question I would ask the minister is how many people and how many jobs have he created since he became the minister.
And if there is no job in the federal system what happened to other sectors, what happened to entrepreneurs which happens to be the highest employers of labour which the government allowed to die like that?
“This best way to go about it is to encourage the local manufacturers knowing that they are the highest employers of labour but in Nigeria the reverse is the case.
“Five years ago I came out with a PhD in Computer Engineering but for the fact that there was no white collar job, a lady brought her business to me she came up with a very fine farming plan if well assisted she will not only employ herself she will also employ others.
“When I checked her business plan I took her to an industry to see if we can seek financial assistance as they do claim that they help farmers, I went with her but surprisingly the conditions she was given before she can be assisted will take her up to eight months before to meet up with.
“Even if you can wait for that period of time there is no assurance the money will be given to you”, he said.
