As the results of the 2011 Presi-dential election trickle in, in favour of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, has assured that the ugly trend of unemployment in the country will soon be reduced to the barest minimum.The Minister said the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan had already planned ahead and concluded plans to create jobs for the teeming unemployed youths in the country, if he was re-elected.He emphasised the commitment of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to various reform programmes aimed at repositioning Nigeria among the comity of nations and from its present state of developing to a developed nation.Chief Wogu spoke in his home constituency, Ward 6, Unit 6, Ohazu Community in Aba South of Abia State, where he had gone to cast his vote in the Presidential election.He said: Mr. President has promised to create a million jobs every year, and that was one of the conclusions from the recently concluded job summit. The President is passionate about this.My plea to the teeming unemployed youths is to be patient because the current budget for 2011 has a budgetary allocation of N50 billion and this is an amount that has been budgeted to address the issue of unemployment, underemployment and retention of already existing jobs.There is a job creation programme. The Dangote committee on job creation is there. In Ministry of Labour and Productivity, we have a programme for job creation. Also, the parastatal under the Ministry is involved in employment generation programmes; so we are keyed into the Presidential job creation programme.Wogu affirmed the belief and confidence that President Good-luck Jonathan, if re-elected, would continue his good works and reform agenda as there would be no dislocation in governance, but continuity. He further advised Nigerians no to relent in their support to the administration of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan in its effort to reform Nigeria.I have confidence in the ability of Mr. President to create jobs to tackle unemployment. You can see that the reform in electoral practices has started gaining the desired result, as there are free, fair and credible elections devoid of violence. That is the mantra of Mr. President and you can see that it is working.My advice to the country is to be patient and continue to support Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and his programme, be law abiding and believe in the transformation agenda, the Minister said.He described the elections as freest, fairest and most credible in Nigerian history, adding, this is one of the freest, fairest and very peaceful elections. INEC has really improved on last week election. It was equally good, but today, there is a whole lot of improvements. People have queued up patiently to vote, election materials, and men arrived here on time and about 10 minutes past eight, accreditation started.I have been accredited and came back to vote, he said.
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