Job creation, workers’ welfare, agreement with trade unions: Why Tinubu’s government must be different —ASCSN president

National President of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), Comrade (Dr) Tommy Etim Okon, in this interview with CHRISTIAN APPOLOS, spoke on why President Bola Tinubu’s administration has to be different with issues around job creation, workers’ welfare and agreement with trade unions.

Nigeria is in the era of President Bola Tinubu’s governance. As a trade unionist, what should his administration prioritise?

Without mincing worlds, President Bola Tinubu must prioritise job creation, followed by workers’ welfare and he must be a president that implements agreements reached with labour unions. He must come up with policies and programmes that aim at lifting Nigeria up from the abyss the past administration buried it.

He must be different if he wants to make a difference in Nigeria. Nigeria, as of today, is in a sorry state across board. The worst thing Tinubu will do is to use the same method the past administrations used. He must not make a mockery of himself by governing like a man who does not know his left from right. He should do things appropriately and target-fully. He should tell himself that he has no choice but to turn things around for the better.

Job creation must be on the top 10 list of the things his administration must be remembered for. I am not talking about giving billions to the Humanitarian ministry or to any other agency that has no capacity or required structure to execute job creation related policies. He must particularly put the right pegs in the right holes.

Why the emphasis on putting the right pegs in the right hole?

The emphasis is because we saw a lot of abnormalities, especially in the way the immediate past administration governed. I won’t go into details but President Tinubu’s must be different. Governance might not be easy but when you use the right people, already established agencies and monitor the progress of what you assign them to do, you will definitely achieve the desired result. And right now, Nigeria and its citizens are in dire need of a breath of fresh air; for something better.

For instance, we all know that when it comes to job creation, white collar jobs are no more available as in the past. Blue collar jobs are the new horizon. And to succeed in this direction, we need to consciously equip our graduates with the required skills. Without 21st Century labour required skills, they cannot even get the few available white collar jobs. So, job creation now is more about ensuring that our youths are given opportunities to learn skills and enabled to start up businesses.

You cannot be talking about skills or other programmes for job creation and you will not make the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and other inclined agencies for such important project. When the National Directorate of Employment was created, the aim was to equip the youth with skills, whether they are in school or not. In fact, the plan was to train Nigerian youths with one skill or the other provided you are interested to learn a skill. NDE then had what was called School on Wheels particularly targeted to reach the youth who are willing to learn a skill wherever they are. Many of us were beneficiaries of that job creation training scheme.

With such structured training skills scheme back in the early 1990s, it is obvious that NDE was established with true intent to prepare Nigerian youths to withstand unemployment crisis such as we are having now. Unfortunately, subsequent governments relegated the agency and the good it has for our country and the citizens. You cannot talk about job creation now and you put such agency behind.

There are a lot of people who have graduated from the tertiary institutions that are going back to learn skills. Almost all our graduates have the intellectual know-how but lack the technical know-how. The good news is that many Nigerian youth, who, after tertiary education, went to learn one skill or the other are doing well today. The question is, why not revive NDE to provide 21st century skills to Nigerian youths, as part of targeted effort to combat unemployment crisis in the country?

Decent work is chief in ILO’s latest campaigns for the world of work. In Nigeria, where is the place of decent work as we strive for job creation?

Nigeria needs to create an environment that is very conducive for the world of work because we cannot talk about decent work where the environment is not conducive for the employee. You cannot talk about decent work where the take home of a worker cannot take the worker home. You cannot talk about decent work where there is no social safety net that cares for families or social protection for the worker.

For you to talk about decent work, these are areas that need to be focused on. You need to focus on the energy which is the environment and also the economy because where a worker has the required energy which is the skill and then operates under a conducive environment, the end result will be productivity. When productivity is enhanced, the economy will automatically boom. When the economy booms, workers will have purchasing power; the worker will be able to buy goods and services and also save. Once a worker can save, the bank will have money and when the bank has money, it can lend and when the bank can lend, the manufacturing industry will thrive and there will be job creation. This is the practical aspect of decent work that we need in Nigeria and should be talking about.

Most people talk about blue collar jobs as a viable option in the quest for job creation. Where should the Federal Government start from?

Let me go back to the National Directorate of Employment. NDE is one of government agencies that have structure. For the mere fact that NDE and its job creation programmes have been there since 1987 and has structure in all the states and every local government area in Nigeria, it is a good place for government to start. The agency is well placed and positioned when you talk about executing poverty alleviation and job creation programmes.

The government has removed fuel subsidy. They are going to create avenues to cushion the effect. If the intention of government is to make the policy work, it will work. If government’s intention is to frustrate the policy, you will see that it will amount to nothing in the end.

What I am saying is NDE is well institutionalised to solve the skill gap when it comes to job creation in this country. If there are aspects of NDE’s operation that doesn’t match the preset day realities, the best thing is for government to redesign and fund the agency to meet the current job creation need. To jettison fine policies is not best way to move a country forward. It is just like the call from different individuals for scrapping of NYSC. NYSC was and still is a very successful policy put in place to foster unity and socio-cultural development in Nigeria. Instead of redefining it to suit and be more productive in line with present day realities, people are calling for it to be scrapped. All we need is a policy that can change and transform this economy and the citizens to have a sense of belonging and to be proud citizen of this country.

Today in Nigeria, there are so many programmes created under different platforms in the name of combating unemployment, yet unemployment rate in the country is still skyrocketing. The problem is that government is not doing what should be done. In the name of job creation programmes, government is running here and there, doing this or that in a structure-less manner and in the end there is nothing to show for it.

But if the programmes are institutionalised as in the case of NDE and they are followed logically, there will be concrete data and result to show for it. But because the interventions are scattered, it is very difficult to present accurate data or information on the true state of unemployment today no matter the best effort or ingenuity of the National Bureau of Statistics.

By now, the tertiary education system should have made sure that our graduates are not just theoretical and paper graduates but skillfully equipped school leavers, with alternative means of jobs to earn a living. The same goes to the NYSC programmes. The government could establish farms where these people will spend that one year, producing to feed the nation instead of going to offices to become file carriers that achieve and contribute nothing.

Does government have anything to lose if it prioritises workers’ welfare?

The government has nothing to lose if it prioritises workers’ welfare rather, it will gain more. Check for instance parents who take good care of their children and send them to good schools; they end up doing well. In the same way, parents that did otherwise are automatically raising generation of poverty. If you create workers who are driven by poverty, it has spillover effect. You are building a poverty stricken society and the economy suffers. So, when you place premium on the workers, every other thing surrounding work will flourish.

Any government that does not take the welfare of its workforce as a priority is bound for doom because if you like build infrastructure, it is the same worker that will operate it. If you like bring artificial intelligence, it is the same worker that will manipulate it. Workers’ welfare and productivity goes hand in hand. If the government must prioritise productivity, then workers’ welfare is the best or shortest route to achieving that. You cannot talk about national competitiveness or international ranking without the workforce.

It therefore means that government must take premium the welfare of workers. It is not about running to court to get injunction to stop workers from going on strike. You are just postponing the evil day. Do the right thing, the workers will follow.

This government has to be different in implementing collective bargaining agreements because the only problem workers have with government is reneging on collective bargaining agreement. The same thing with other employers of labour and they will tell you that government does the same thing. We will meet, reach an agreement and you will jettison the agreement, yet you don’t want workers to go on strike. We have given them a window to do so and gain the confidence of workers and labour movement and Nigerians at large.

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