Osun 2018: Your job scheme mere deceit, APC tells Omisore

 

OSUN State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Iyiola Omisore on Sunday engaged in verbal war over the skills acquisition programme and data of the unemployed citizens, being generated by the latter to tackle joblessness in the state.

 

While the APC described the SDP flag bearer’s programme on acquisition of vocational skills by indigenes of the state as a deceit, Omisore contended that the empowerment programme was aimed at tackling the scourge of unemployment and offer lifeline to indigent people, saying Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s administration had failed to address the growing rate of joblessness in the state.

In a statement signed by the director of publicity, research and strategy of the APC in Osun, Barrister Kunle Oyatomi, which was forwarded to the Nigerian Tribune, the party alleged that “the whole damned thing is a scam and the people of Osun should discountenance it. It is another governorship election cycle and as usual, Omisore is again engaged in a mean deception of pliable people.”

According to the statement, “if Omisore has any job to give anyone, why should he wait until this period, when election is less than 40 days away? Just as Omisore did in 2014, he is again circulating a bogus employment form and asking the unemployed to fill. The people of Osun already know that Omisore is not, and does not have an employment agency.”

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“So for him to be giving jobless people the impression that he cares about their joblessness is fake. The purpose is to deceive and mislead impressionable people that job is available for them. All those who may have heard or come into contact with the Omisore employment form should disregard it because it is fake,” the statement added.

But, Omisore said his resolve to implement the vocational skills acquisition programme and generate data of unemployed graduates were targeted at clearing the mess the state governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesols had created over his alleged failure to address increasing rate of unemployment in the state.

Speaking during a telephone chat with our correspondent, he said “our manifesto is centred on human capital development. We are insisting on human capital development in Osun State. The working of any policy and programme is dependent on human capital development. The unemployment rate in Osun is high and for us to plan, we want to know the number of unemployed graduates. We want to plan for them.”

Omisore contended that “this government is not sincere. Our people are impoverished, but the state government is giving jobs to plumbers, masons and other artisans from Lagos. We are emphasising local content in our government. All jobs emanating from Osun State must be done by the people in Osun. All graduates would be employed and trained to be employable. If we want to get to the level we desire, we must ascertain where we are, we started this programme over a year, they did not talk.”

“We started with vocational skills, involving artisans like auto mechanics, electricians, hairdressers and so on. We have finished with those categories. We are now on indigenes with educational qualification such as OND, HND and first degrees. We want to start working immediately we get into government. We don’t want OYES kind of thing where people will be given only N10,000 only for them to be disengaged after a period of time. We want to give people dignified and pensionable employment.”

“The primary concern of the APC is just to award contracts and take our money to Lagos. We want to restore dignity back to our people. With diligent planning, we are going to employ all employable graduates in this state. We need data to know where we are going. We would train them to be employable and give them assess to new skills. There are 10 trade centres in Osun State that have not been utilised. We would equip them. We are going to pay all salaries up to date and pensioners would be paid up to date”, Omisore remarked.