Nigeria’s business mogul and President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, Tuesday said the creation of jobs for youth in Nigeria should be accorded the highest national importance and urgency. Dangote, who spoke at the Presidential Summit on Job Creation at the State House Banquet Hall, Abuja, said this was the only way Nigeria would escape the situation in the Arab countries where unemployed youth became effective catalyst for social unrest. Dangota, who is also Chairman of National Job Creation Committee (NJCC), also noted that Nigeria could not grow and develop as it should if more than half of its population was not working either because there are no jobs or because they have no skills. He also said the challenge of poor infrastructure should be seen as opportunities to create jobs.
He charged the government to also address the issue of political will and firm determination in government policies that directly or indirectly lead to job losses in the name of globalization.
Dangote also warned that for this initiative to succeed, a monitoring framework must be set up.
According to the business mogul, “most worrisome in this emerging paradox was that the highest rate of unemployment was in our rapidly expanding youth population. In order words, our youth are underemployed, unemployed or unemployable at the peak of their productivity.
“As we have seen in the Maghreb countries of Tunisa, Egypt, Libya and now spreading to the Emirates of the Middle East, youth unemployment is a very effective catalyst for social unrest that has brought down the entire governments. In Nigeria, the issue of youth unemployment in a country where more than half the populations are youth is a matter of national importance and national urgency.
“There is no gainsaying that we have significant challenges in Nigeria. 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.
“It is estimated that 70 per cent of manufactured goods consumed in this country are imported, 10 per cent reduction by increased local production will translate to creation of millions of jobs and conservation of our foreign exchange reserves. It has been reported that for the month of March alone, the CBN had to source for US$ 4 billion to meet the national demand for foreign exchange for imports.
‘This is at a level in excess of our monthly earnings of foreign exchange for oil exports, the mainstay of our economy. You will agree with me that this trend is not sustainable and there is urgent need for deliberate government policies and programmes designed to reserve it. Policies and programmes that target job creation as a major deliverable must feature prominently in any such efforts to save our country.”
While noting that the initiative was not the first intervention or attempt to put Nigerians to work, Dangote said for this one not to go the way of the one before it, “a national framework that makes the actual number of jobs created as important as Gross Domestic Development (GDP) growth rate as indicators of economic development and government performance is being put forward.”
He therefore urged the summit not to end up as a talk show but “action oriented and result in specific commitments by the private and public sector to create jobs’.
The NJCC recommended the adoption of a job creation framework underpinned by the formulation of government policies that are centred on national interest.