President Goodluck Jonathan has intensified efforts at job creation in the country with the setting up of several organs to seek out the best ways to tackle the problem. In line with this, he recently brought stakeholders together at the Presidential Villa to deliberate on various proposals. Leon Usigbe reports.Experts gathered in the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa recently to brainstorm on the way to provide jobs for the ever increasing labour force in the country. It was a one-day National Job Creation Summit organised by an Alhaji Aliko Dangote led-Committee under the National Economic Management Team (NEMT).President Goodluck Jonathan presided and ended the summit with a call for more private sector involvement in the creation of jobs in the country, as he harped on the imperative of finding a way to provide jobs for the youth so that they will cease to be willing tools in the hands of unscrupulous politicians to foment trouble during elections. For him, government alone is not in the position to adequately tackle unemployment problem and therefore, it is important for key players in the private sector and development partners to join in the effort.The cooperation of the private sector in this direction is essential, going by facts available which suggest that more people are joining the labour market where the potential to be gainfully employed is limited.According to the Minister of Finance, Dr Olusegun Aganga, who presented a paper at the summit, the most recent National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) labour force survey shows that the size of Nigeria labour force is increasing at a faster rate than the employment opportunities being generated in the economy, even though he assured that this need to tackle unemployment is by no means exclusively a Nigerian problem but a global thing in the wake of a global crisis. That is why other countries are also making job creation a priority. Nigeria is not left out because President Jonathan has made the creation of job and the eradication of poverty as core goals in his administrations transformation agenda for the country.And this is why inclusive growth and job creation is one of the four pillars of our economic growth strategy to sourcing the capital that is needed for growth, removing the barriers to productivity and improving the business climate, Aganga said.The minister told his audience that the president was particularly passionate about giving our young people the right set of economic opportunities and reforming social security to enhance the frame work for supporting the poorest and most vulnerable individuals in our society, adding that Jonathans government was the first Nigerian administration to admit that unemployment was a serious issue especially in the face of strong economic growth.He revealed that government has identified certain factors as major causes of the high rate of unemployment in Nigeria, including inadequate infrastructure and power, an unattractive investment climate, lack of access to affordable long term capital and skills miss match. This was what prompted President Jonathan to inaugurate the NEMT last year, which he charged with the responsibility of delivering strategy to tackle unemployment.According to Aganga, NEMT has refocused its policy deliberation on creating jobs in accordance with the instructions from the president which led to the creation of a job creation committee under the chairmanship of Dangote, which drew on resources from the public and private sector to pull together an Action Plan for Job Creation. He further explained that while NEMT is now intensifying its effort with regard to reducing unemployment and poverty, government is gearing its economic policies towards creating jobs in addition to other goals in order to achieve macro-economic stability, growth and other objectives.And we see that many of these policies are complimentary and self reinforcing. For example, promoting industrialisation through a policy of import substitution not only increases Nigerians resilience to external shocks and reserves, it will also significantly boost employment, Aganga who also enumerated what government is doing in collaboration with the private sector, added. He was confident that government will not fail in its purpose as it takes opportunity and inclusion for all Nigerians as important and at the core of its mission.The Dangote Job Creation committee was inaugurated to unravel the mystery behind the impressive economic growth which has not been followed by a corresponding employment increase. In his remarks at the summit, Dangote found most worrisome in this emerging paradox the fact that the highest rate of unemployment is among the rapidly expanding youth population.In other words, our youths are underemployed, unemployed or unemployable at the peak of their productivity. He therefore warned: As we have seen in the Maghreb countries of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and now spreading to the Emirates of the Middle East, youth unemployment is a very effective catalyst for unrest that has brought down entire governments. Unrest in the Maghreb region was apparently sparked by a single unemployed youth who took his own life in a very public manner rather than face a life time of being unemployed and not being able to meet the basic human needs of food, shelter and clothing not to talk of the dignity of productive labour.To the business mogul, the issue of youth unemployment in a country where more than half the population are youths is a matter of national importance and national urgency. He argued Nigeria cannot grow and develop as it should, if more than half of its population is not working either because there are no jobs or because they have no skills. This is why the committee was given the mandate to come up with an action plan, encompassing practice and specific interventions for ensuring increased job creation.Dangote noted that the committee has also included two conditions for the achievement of its mandate. Firstly, interventions for job creation would be made in spite of and in the face of the many challenges that the country faces as an emerging economy. Secondly, the committee would narrow the focus of job creation to sectors of the economy where the nation had a natural advantage and where there appeared to be substantial opportunities for job creation.There is no gainsaying that we have significant challenges that could frustrate every job creation effort or intervention that we could muster - challenges that include poor infrastructure, an unattractive and uncompetitive investment climate, inadequate access to finance, skills shortages and weak regulatory institutions. However, we have chosen to see these challenges as opportunities in themselves to create jobs, he declared.Dangote advocated that Nigeria capitalise on the areas where it has natural advantages such as agriculture and agro processing and also focus on manufacturing, building, construction, sport, entertainment, micro, small and medium businesses. National skill development must therefore be re-focused on these areas where we see a natural take off of people with relevant skills. In other words, our skill acquisition efforts must be aligned with our economic priorities, if we to create productive jobs, he said.Furthermore, the man who was recently revealed by Forbes Magazine as the richest man in Africa, noted that a major challenge which any government that is serious about job creation must address with strong political will and firm determination is the area of government policies that directly or indirectly lead to job losses in the name of globalisation.These challenges are on the way to being addressed, judging by the disposition of President Jonathan who has indicated his willingness to provide that political will and has promised to institute the enabling environment that will lead to the enhancement of employment opportunities for the teeming youth of the country.
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