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FG to commence registration of unemployed Nigerians nationwide

By on December 2, 2015

In a move aimed at actualising the planned social security for the teeming unemployed Nigerians, the federal government monday said plans were underway to register all unemployed citizens across the country.

The decision came amid the slow pace by the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government to fulfill its campaign promise of paying unemployed graduates N5,000 as social security stipend.

The acting Director General of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Mr. Olakunle Obayan, stated this during the official handover by the former Director General, Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed.

Speaking on the current template to address the challenges of unemployment in the country, Obayan said: “Actually some of them (projects) are brand new and they are coming up in 2016. We are going to tenaciously pursue the employment generation activities of NDE,  and we are going to expand their scope.

“This new schemes when they come on board, are schemes such that they are going to take care of the social security issues and something that will need majority of the people to get something doing.”

He stated that: Besides, we have programmes that are for the graduates of the tertiary institutions as well. We have so many programmes that have been designed such that it will improve our service delivery system.

“We are going to pursue that vigorously, we are going to start a national registration of the unemployed. That we are going to take on fully so that we will have a great idea of how many of them are around.” Obayan stated: “We have some but we are going to improve on the information we have in our data base and we are going to make sure that it is something we can access from our different locations, even if you are down in the hinterland, you should be able to do so.

“We have all these things planned in place, all these will drive as soon as I settle down which is this week  and you will start seeing these activities around NDE.”

Regarding funding of such programmes, the acting DG stated that “the issue of funding is something that is hindering the NDE to even do more in meeting its mandate. How are you going to go about funding so that all visions won’t waste?

“Being in government, so many times, you have to be conscious about what goes on in your funds from here to there. Right now, we are going into PPPs so that we can extend the mileage of our funds and how many people we can reach and several collaborations as well that we are getting into.

“Some of them with the members of the national assembly, world bank, we will want to partner with DFID, ILO and so many development partners, but asides that, we  try to do more in 2016 because government does not have that kind of money right now, and actually employment generation, and job creation should not be solely for government; private sectors generally, they should come on board.

“This is one of the reasons  we are planning a stakeholders’ forum, where the private sector will actually know its role. It is not strictly for government, these people we train, are not only for government, they are for all.” While presenting his handover notes, Mohammed said he would leave behind an efficient workforce that had been groomed in tackling the nation’s employment crisis.

He explained that NDE has diversified into various areas in the training and mentoring of Nigerians not just for acquiring jobs but also for creating employment opportunities for other Nigerians.
The former DG retires from service after 26 years in public service

 

[ThisDay]

One Comment

  1. dangle

    December 3, 2015 at 10:51 am

    Make the hallmark of your administration justice, not retribution – US
    lawyer writes Buhari

    on December 02, 2015 / in News, Viewpoint 2:53 pm
    / Comments

    Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Reddit Print

    A United State (U.S) citizen and constitutional/international lawyer,
    Bruce Fein has written an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari
    regarding what he considers as the President’s selective prosecution of
    corruption charges against former officials in the Goodluck Jonathan
    administration.

    Bruce Fein , U.S citizen and
    constitutional/international lawyer

    Fein & DelValle PLLC

    Fein who pointed out that the current administration’s anti-corruption
    move was not even-handed in the pursuit of justice, advised Buhari to make
    justice the hallmark of his administration and not retribution.

    Fein, who served as a senior official in Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department,
    is a principal in a government affairs and public relations firm, The Lichfield
    Group, based in Washington, D.C.

    See the full text of Fein’s letter below:

    Aso Rock, Abuja Nigeria

    Dear President Buhari:

    When you visited the United States Institute of Peace last July, you pledged
    that you would be “fair, just and scrupulously follow due process and the rule
    of law, as enshrined in [the Nigerian]constitution” in prosecuting corruption.

    Such loftiness is laudable. As the Bible instructs in Amos 5:24: “Let
    justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

    But to be just, the law must be evenhanded. It cannot, in the manner of
    Russian President Vladimir Putin, be something that is given to punish your
    enemies and withheld to favor your friends. If so, the law becomes an
    instrument of injustice bearing earmarks of the wicked rather than the good.

    In the United States, you declared a policy of “zero tolerance” against
    corruption. You solicited weapons and other assistance from the United States
    government based on that avowal. But were you sincere?

    During your election campaign, you promised widespread amnesty, not zero
    tolerance. You elaborated: “Whoever that is indicted of corruption between 1999
    to the time of swearing-in would be pardoned. I am going to draw a line,
    anybody who involved himself in corruption after I assume office, will face the
    music.”

    After you were inaugurated, however, you disowned your statement and
    declared you would prosecute past ministers or other officials for corruption
    or fraud. And then again you immediately hedged. You were reminded of your
    dubious past by former Major General and President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida,
    who succeeded your military dictatorship. He released this statement:

    “On General Buhari, it is not in IBB’s tradition to take up issues with his
    colleague former President. But for the purpose of record, we are conversant
    with General Buhari’s so-called holier-than-thou attitude. He is a one-time
    Minister of Petroleum and we have good records of his tenure as minister.
    Secondly, he presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, which records we also
    have.

    We challenge him to come out with clean hands in those two portfolios he
    headed. Or we will help him to expose his records of performance during those
    periods. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. General Buhari
    should be properly guided.”

    You then swiftly backed off your zero tolerance policy because you would
    have been its first casualty. You opportunistically announced that zero
    tolerance would be narrowed to the predecessor administration of Goodluck Jonathan
    because to probe further would be “a waste of time.” That conclusion seems
    preposterous. In 2012, the World Bank’s ex-vice president for Africa, Oby
    Ezekwesili, estimated that a stupendous $400 billion in Nigerian oil revenues
    had been stolen or misspent since independence in 1960. The lion’s share of
    that corruption spans far beyond the Jonathan administration.

    Your zero tolerance policy seems to come with a squint to avoid seeing
    culpability in your political friends. A few examples are but the tip of the
    iceberg.

    A Rivers State judicial commission of inquiry found that N53 billion
    disappeared from the Rivers State Reserve Fund under former governor Rotimi
    Amaechi. Former Lagos governor and head of your campaign finance team Babatunde
    Fashola was accused of squandering N78 million of government money to upgrade
    his personal website. The EFCC has ignored these corruption allegations, and
    you have given both promotions: the Ministry of Transport to Mr. Amaechi, and
    the Ministry of Power, Works, and Housing to Mr. Fashola.

    In contrast, you have played judge, jury, and prosecutor in the newspapers
    to convict former PDP Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke of corruption.

    Is this evenhanded justice?

    United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson taught: “There is no more
    effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than
    to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a
    minority must be imposed generally. Conversely, nothing opens the door to arbitrary
    action so effectively as to allow those officials to pick and choose only a few
    to whom they will apply legislation and thus to escape the political
    retribution that might be visited upon them if larger numbers were affected.”

    To investigate or prosecute based on political affiliation or opinion also
    violates Articles 2 and 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is
    unworthy of a great nation like Nigeria.

    Make the hallmark of your administration justice, not retribution, and you
    may live for the ages.

    I am a United States citizen and lawyer. I have no political standing in
    Nigeria. Some might argue that my speaking about the administration of justice
    in Nigeria bespeaks impertinence But you chose to visit the United States to
    solicit weapons and other assistance from my government–a government of the
    people, by the people, for the people. The United States government represents
    me. What the United States government does reflects on me. I thus have an
    interest in addressing the actions of foreign governments that receive United
    States government aid.

    Sunshine is said to be the best of disinfectants.

    Sincerely,

    Bruce Fein Fein

    & DelValle PLLC

    300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900

    Washington, D.C. 20001