AGAINST the backdrop of statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics indicating high unemployment in the country, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Mr Bolaji Adebiyi has said that more reliable and accurate data will show that the current federal government had greatly tackled unemployment.
Speaking in Ibadan, on Monday, at a two day workshop on “National Reporting Template on Elimination of Child Labour in Nigeria”, Adebiyi pointed to efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari led government in providing employment for millions of Nigerians to include the launch of National Employment Council, N-power programme among other social intervention programmes.
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While praying that the government puts out a more sufficient data showing its interventions, Adebiyi who was represented by his technical adviser, Mr Emmanuel Igbinosun, said that every sector of the economy was being geared towards providing more employment opportunities for Nigerians.
“The policies of the government are yielding a lot of results and there are a lot of interventions by the government with regards to tackling unemployment starting from the N-power programme to a lot of activities. But, employment is a cross-cutting issue and every sector of the economy needs to geared to providing that employment.”
“I don’t think we have sufficient data to show how much government has actually done, but the government has done much more than we see in those data of the National Bureau of Statistics. I believe that when we have more reliable data that will show the efforts of government at driving close to the people, you would see that government is actually making in-roads to reducing unemployment and thereby preventing people from leaving the country,” Adebiyi said.
On efforts of the federal government at mitigating child labour, Adebiyi charged state governments, labour unions, employers associations and relevant agencies to implement the existing national reporting template for effective monitoring, evaluation and data collection on child labour in Nigeria.
According to Adebiyi, the template was configured to help combat child labour across the country, eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking.
Especially, he harped on the importance of collaboration among the relevant stakeholders towards implementing the National Action Policy on child labour to prevent hazardous and exploitative work, engender a child-friendly and progressively child labour free environment.
In addition, Adebiyi said the federal government was poised to stop irregular migrations of Nigerians, urging relevant stakeholders to collaborate on implementing the National policy on labour migration which seeks to improve the environment for labour migration, protect migrant workers and harness the benefits of migration for national development.
He particularly lauded the Oyo and Ogun state labour offices for their inauguration of steering committees on child labour.
Also speaking at the event Director, Inspectorate, Mr Solomon Ajibola said the federal government was poised to come up with National Directorate to supervise desk offices at Federal Ministry of Labour in states of the country on child labour.
He enjoined all stakeholders to make use of the reporting template that has been developed so as to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 8 by 2025 of eradicating child labour and creating a child-friendly environment.
The event had representatives of stakeholders of the National Reporting Template of Child Labour to include the Nigerian Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, Network of CSOs Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Labour (NACTAL), and other agencies.
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