State govts should answer for job creation – APC chieftain

A former member of the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Ayobami Oyalowo, has said that state governments should also answer for job creation in their respective capacities.

Oyalowo, who was answering questions regarding the plans of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in rescuing the economy of the country, particularly in the area of job creation, said state governments should also be questioned.

The APC chieftain said this when he featured on Arise TV Morning Show on Monday.

According to him, Tinubu has a load of economic plans for the country.

“Asiwaju (Tinubu) has stated clearly what a government should do. We keep forgetting that we have three tiers of government. When you keep talking about jobs, have you asked state governors what have they done in terms of job creation?” he said when questioned on how Tinubu intended to tackle the rate of unemployment in the country.

‘Employment not limited to White Collar jobs’

“See, let me quickly bring you back to where we were before Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) became president.

“Our entire grain crops in Nigeria – over 90% – was imported. As I speak today, that has been removed. We have empowered farmers. But of course, nobody talks about farmers, you keep thinking people who don’t work in ministries and government agencies are jobless, however, go and check the statistics,” he added.

‘Ability to go for hajj determines wealth’

According to him, to know who is wealthy in the North, one of the things you have to look at is the ability to go for Umrah or hajj.

“Go and check the last five years, the highest number of people from the North who have gone on hajj have been farmers who were empowered, especially rice and grain farmers. Creating jobs is not only for people to get jobs in ministry,” he added.

‘Architect of Lagos’

He said Tinubu’s manifesto ensured that every zone had a competitive advantage, saying Tinubu would empower the zones by going through the governors and ensuring that jobs were created.

He said Tinubu could be trusted in the affairs of the country having been “the architect of what we’re seeing today” in Lagos.

The chieftain also reiterated that Tinubu would return to the country today.

Failed promises

The PUNCH reports that controversy has trailed the eight years regime of Buhari particularly on the state of the economy and promises of the APC government.

An earlier report by this newspaper explained that rising inflation botched Buhari’s promise of lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty.

According to the Consumer Price Index report by the NBS in March 2023, Nigeria’s inflation rate accelerated to a new 17-year high of 22.04 per cent. With increasing prices worsening the welfare of Nigerian households, the World Bank revealed that the country had one of the highest inflation rates globally and the seventh highest in sub-Saharan Africa in 2022.

In its mid-April report, the National Poverty Reduction with Growth Strategy steering committee revealed that about two million vulnerable Nigerians were impacted by its various projects. This is two per cent of the 100 million Nigerians the President hoped to lift out of poverty.

‘133 million poor Nigerians’

In November 2022, the National Bureau of Statistics disclosed that 133 million Nigerians were multidimensionally poor.

In its National Multidimensional Poverty Index Report launched, the NBS said that 63 per cent of Nigerians were poor due to a lack of access to health, education, and living standards, alongside unemployment and shocks.

The MPI offered a multivariate form of poverty assessment, identifying deprivations across health, education, living standards, work and shocks.

According to the Statistician-General at the NBS, Semiu Adeniran, it was the first time they would conduct a standard multidimensional poverty survey in Nigeria.