Ngige accepts failure, laments widespread unemployment

Despite the Nigerian govt’s claims of creating millions of jobs since its inception in 2015, the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr Chris Ngige, has lamented that there is widespread unemployment among the citizenry in Nigeria.

Ngige made this assertion on Tuesday at the inaugural partnership economy summit organised by the Ministry of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs in Abuja.

He stated that the spiralling insecurity and its attendant societal scourges are attributed to the widespread unemployment, adding that the country risks sliding into anarchy if these challenges are not adequately redressed.

Ngige said, “We are in trouble as a country. We are in trouble and anybody who tells you he doesn’t know we are in trouble is lying to himself.

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“We are facing a problem that is cyclic, one begat the other. It is left for you and me, the elite, to decide to save ourselves, save our children and save our country.

“If we keep on with these symptoms; buy ammunition, bomb these people, bomb kidnappers, bomb Boko Haram, you will be wasting resources. If you had prevented it, it would cost you less. We must give education to these people at the grassroots.

“Those who can’t get an education, we must provide them jobs so that they can fend for themselves. They can put a roof over their heads.”

The Minister further noted the importance of education towards fostering harmony in society.

“If you don’t kill ignorance, you are breeding people who would be brainwashed to believe that with Biafra all their problems will go away; Oduduwa, all their problems will go, Boko Haram.

“If we don’t tackle them, we will continue like this until this country might be wiped out completely; we don’t pray for that. We must give education to the people at the grassroots,” Ngige said.