The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it was not
responsible for the job losses in the economy in the last three years.
National
publicity secretary of the party, Mallam Lanre Isa Onilu, made the
declaration on Tuesday while speaking with newsmen in Abuja.
According
to statistics made available by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)
released by its Labour Force Statistics on December 19, 2018, about
3.3 million Nigerians became unemployed between December 2017 and
September 2018. It has since deteriorated to 20.9 million according to
data from the same source.
But addressing newsmen, the APC
spokesman said: Nigerians should draw a line between job losses and
unemployment rate. Mallam Onilu said the blame for the latter should be
put at the doorstep of the erstwhile ruling party, the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP).
Onilu further submitted that there have
been no job losses in the federal institutions in the last three years
and further noted that whatever job losses in the economy could be
attributed to the organised private sector and what he called the locust
years that was 16 years of PDP misrule
He said: “The statistics
you refer to, I don’t know what specific statistics you are talking
about, if it’s about unemployment, you need to go and check the
statistics again, and you need to compare the difference between
unemployment and job loss. If it’s about job loss then you will commend
this government, that since this government came, all those factors
that will lead to job loss are not there. The private sector is being
encouraged.
“The issue of agriculture, we all know what
agriculture has done to this country, nobody can deny that anymore, it
is very obvious. And the biggest employer of labour is that sector, and
that is the sector where Nigeria has recorded the biggest growth in the
last three years.
So, what about job gains from such sector? From
government institutions, is there any government institutions you would
say has laid off any worker in the last three years? Rather, what we
have is a situation where salaries are paid regularly, allowances are
paid regularly. Pensions are paid to those who have left the service and
have not been paid for donkey years. So, what factors will lead to that
job loss that we are talking about?
Unemployment is a different
issue, it is not the same as job loss. What account for unemployment is a
progressive degeneration that happened to this country over the cause
of the period that PDP was in power, and what this government has done
is to continue to create the environment, where we are moving gradually
from that mono-economy, complete dependent on oil to an economy where
people have choices, and that is the environment that encourages
individual to be creative, to be able to apply himself to all the
opportunities that are available. So, today any able Nigerian who wishes
to employ himself can do so, because the support system is in place
and it is working.
He equally dismissed insinuations that the
federal government has been selective in its anti-corruption crusade as
he vowed that any erstwhile member of the PDP who has joined the ruling
party would not be spared, if a case of corruption was established
against such individual in a court of law.
“If it is about people
who were hitherto members of PDP who came into APC who are now
occupying strategic positions. The idea was never to import people
from the mass. The idea was to create a new environment where
Nigerians that we all know, including ourselves will turn a new leaf
and do things according to rule of law, ensure that we apply decency
into our actions and patriotism is defined by our quest to promote the
interest of this country ahead of our personal interest.
That
was what all these is all about. And without prejudice to whatever
actions that may have been taken by anyone in the past, the fact that
you are in APC has proven by several cases in courts regarding
corruption that is not an excuse for you to escape justice.
So,
even those who came along during merger were accepted with the
impression that they have turn a new leaf but has events shown later
they turn out that they only came that is going to be business as
usual. And when they found out thinking it was going to be business as
usual. When they found out that it wasn’t going to be, they went back
to their evilness called the PDP.
And those who are still in APC
membership of the party wouldn’t assail for you if you had taken any
step that makes you to deserve justice. Justice is being applied to
everyone irrespective of what party you belong.
We have seen
examples. We have two governors who are presently in jail who were
members of APC, they were jailed under this government. We know several
cases that are still in court, and are being pursued vigorously. All
these government need to do is to file the case; it’s not within the
jurisdiction of this government to pass a judgment.”
Source:- Tribuneonlineng
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