During a plenary session that took place on Tuesday, 11th of October, at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit (NES), the Vice President of Nigeria, Yemi Osinbanjo addressed Nigerians regarding what the government is doing about job creation and skills acquisition in the country.
According to the data released by Nigeria’s Bureau of Statistics on the unemployment rate for the second quarter of 2016, the rate of unemployment grew to 13.3 percent compared to 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 2016. This figure was not surprising to many Nigerians due to the massive retrenchment by telecos, shipping companies and banks. However as Nigeria’s economic situation worsens, the number of unemployed people in the country is expected to rise further.
What really is the Nigerian government doing to help create jobs?
According to the Vice President, the government is looking at job creation in three main sectors: Agriculture, Construction and ICT.
“With respect to agriculture and agro allied we are looking at how to create opportunities in agriculture especially in the areas the government finds to be self sufficient such as Rice, Wheat, Soghurm, Soy beans, Tomatoes,” Osinbanjo said. “We think a lot of jobs can be created in farming as well as in the whole value chain from milling, storage and farm to table.”
On construction, the government is tying to create jobs through financial intervention on a social housing programme known as Family Home Fund.
“We are trying to raise a fund which will come to about one trillion Naira; we have aggregated funds from the private sector, local and international funds already. The whole idea is to be able to intervene in mortgage financing so that developers can build special houses to the specification of the federal government.”
According to Osinbanjo, about nine states have given land and certificate of occupancy for the social housing scheme.“The idea is that any Nigerian who can afford N30,000 a month should be able to own a house,’’ he said.
“We are looking at training technicians, tile layers, brick layers, plumber, engineers and the whole spectrum of job in the construction industry,” Osinbanjo further explained.
The Vice President also said that the government is in talks to partner with companies in the private sector such as Dangote Group to train people in construction and other vocations.
“If we do the right thing I think the target of 3million jobs is too small” said Aliko Dangote.“There should be a partnership between the government and private sector for vocation training in the country.”
Dangote also explained the need for an institute were individuals can learn about plumbing and construction.
