Professor Awa Uma is an engineering faculty member at Fairleigh Dickinson University and a job training instructor at Bergen County Technical Schools, New Jersey. In 1987, he was one of four recruited nationwide to provide Vocational Expertise to the US Dept. of Labor, National Office of Job Corps, Washington D.C. Recently, he was in Nigeria and we were able to conduct a cross country study and also attended a few State and Federal training programs for job seeker.
Below are Excerpts of his proposals to Minister Ngige to guide the Federal Government program of job creation for its teeming unemployed millions.
The Nigerian politicians like their counterparts all over the world often make political campaign promises to create jobs and for some reasons actually see themselves and their governments at large as having the abilities and capacities to create jobs. These politicians and their governments come and go without increasing employments in their constituents not to talk about making considerable nationwide job creation impact. Their most common idea of job creation is to establish training programs for youths and women who expectedly would in turn establish their own businesses after training. To the uninformed, jobs are being created when big money is spent on such training programs. But the truth is that training does not create jobs. In many cases the efforts in developing the programs are not more than spending money to conduct ineffective training and distributing funds at the end of the training to the so called graduates who do not gain competent and sustainable skills and could not be appropriately counted as having solid skills in the areas of their training. Most will remain underemployed for a very long time and the few that would appear to succeed in using their training to run what usually amounts to a marginal business enterprise would not have succeeded because of the crash training but as a result of “learning while doing business” in areas that usually do not demand competent skills. Either way such training programs for entrepreneurship take time and money and do not facilitate job creation or lead to employment that would make significant contributions to the economy.
Because politically motivated training programs that do not provide avenues for corruption and resource waste, it is the duty of well-informed citizens to always institute appropriate investigations, through appropriate means, to ascertain the economic benefits of the training programs going on with government funds. The government also has a duty to set up formal and regular investigations to checkmate its own training activities and others that receive government funds. From my professional observations, the belief, especially by third world governments and supported by some consultants affiliated to world public agencies in a bid to create jobs for their employees, that establishing massive training programs equates to job creation is often due to loose interpretations of the term “job creation” while trying to mimic “employment and training programs” in the western world. To be sure, the word “creation” signifies something new and the term “job” has its own special meaning with many components as described later. There are structural issues that must be addressed by any government before job training would increase employment, fill available jobs, and contribute to job creation (new jobs that are non existent in a given entity). Part of what is required is a concerted plan of action to improve the country’s aggregate Performance Improvement Potential (PIP) index which is used to indicate average skill set levels for a given group and the skill gap between what employees currently have and what the most highly skilled person in the same job would have. A low PIP index, within which the aggregate skill sets possessed by Nigerians from all sectors of the economy appears to fall, is unfortunately an indication of a country’s low capacity to create jobs. A country with a low PIP index is often at risk of slipping into a prolonged recession and would depend on expatriates to create a great number of jobs and to fill the skill gaps in critical occupations. So, what is Nigeria to do?
To understand what the Nigerian government would do to create substantial jobs for its citizens, an insightful look into the expanded question “Is the Nigerian government creating enough jobs for its citizens?” from the perspective of the author’s experience working for the United States Department of Labor and many other entities is in order.
A similar question was posed to experts in the United States for its economy a decade-plus ago and was answered by speakers after speakers at the 75th Anniversary of the U. S. Department of Labor that took place at the Capitol Hill in 1987. The Labor Department had invited labor experts, agencies, academia, and the three arms of government to participate in the anniversary programs. Being an employee and expert consultant to the U. S. Dept. of Labor, National Office of Job Corps at the time, I witnessed uncountable events that culminated in what would, in part, pass as expert indoctrination to the government primarily geared towards creating awareness of its roles in job creation. It was then through this awareness that attendees learned more about the place of labor and the obvious fact that apart from business, industry, and many other institutions, the three arms of government inherently have major roles to play in overall job creation. The speakers also revealed the critical roles academia plays in workforce development and the basic essential factors that must not only partly come from educational institutions but must be present for the government to use its revenues to either directly create jobs for the private sector or aid the private sector to create jobs as the case may be. A good example of the role of academia was the establishment of The National Center for Education and Training, which was affiliated to The Department of Education, Theory and Practice at The Ohio State University. The import of this assertion is that it answers another pertinent question of whether or not governments and other related institutions create jobs. From the anniversary speakers, it became obvious that any government run by people and that have workers, military, police force, public school teachers etc. in its payroll, in addition to its obvious roles in providing enabling environments for job creation, do in fact create jobs. In addition, through collaboration with non government entities, government revenues taking from taxation or other avenues can be used for direct job creation inside and outside the government.
But to employ resources effectively, government in collaboration with the nation’s educational and training enterprises must understand the basic factors required to also directly create jobs for the private sector. While it was determined that the American government was creating substantial jobs with promising future outlook, experts were also agreeable that there are always rooms for improvement and as such enjoined participants to always shoot for the moon.
Kachukwu: Working for stability in oil sector
By Justus Odoigbe
The survival of Nigeria as a sovereign nation – state is largely dependent on the petroleum sub – sector as she derives her revenue majorly from crude oil exports.
Indeed, Nigeria is a mono – culture economy whose economic lifeline is basically predicated on the exploration and exportation of its black gold, popularly referred to as crude oil. As it stands, the most critical national infrastructure of Nigeria are pipelines that have been designed to ensure and guarantee uninterrupted supply of crude oil to various refineries across the country.
Overtime, particularly during the Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan administrations, there has been a consistent threat to oil and gas installations in the country arising from the activities of Niger Delta Militants who have been advocating for resource control and other criminal elements who engage in malicious vandalism of the nation’s oil assets in furtherance of their illegal bunkering business.
However, the advent of the present administration under the dynamic leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari has ushered in a new dawn in the petroleum sub-sector of the Nigerian economy.
The appointment and subsequent assumption of office by Dr. Ibe Kachukwu as Nigeria’s Minister of State (Petroleum) has turned-out to be the magic wand needed for the stability and effective sustenance of crude oil production in the country.
If the truth must be told, President Muhammadu Buhari deserves commendation for the meritorious appointment of Kachukwu. Mr. President, in his determination to ensure that round pegs are put in round holes, was not in anyway swayed by sentiments or emotions in assigning the petroleum portfolio to Kachukwu.
So far, the comprehensive reforms undertaken by Kachukwu in repositioning the petroleum sector has been very far reaching and producing the desired results to the extent that there is steady and continuous production of crude oil in our refineries and supplies to the various outlets has been very smooth.
Under the watch of Kachukwu, the oil and gas sector, particularly the NNPC is beginning to live up to its mandate of producing fuel for local consumption and export to the international market – for the economic survival of the Nigerian Nation.
To every discerning mind and keen watchers of the petroleum sector, the speed at which Kachukwu is going about delivering on his responsibility does not live any one in doubt that he is well focused and has a clear vision of changing the ugly narratives associated with the production and supply of petroleum products to a new order of efficiency and sustainability of the gains achieved thus far.
At the global scene, the influence and connections of Kachukwu has brought the much desired respect and regard to Nigeria among the comity of nations. Right now, he is a strong personality to be reckoned with in the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Nations (OPEC).
A cursory analysis of the performance of ministers in the federal executive council point in one direction: that is, Dr. Kachukwu is unarguably, ranked as one of the best performing ministers under the Buhari-led administration.
As for the NNPC (Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation), the solid foundation laid by Kachukwu when he held forte as the Group Managing Director (GMD) has taken the organisation to the next level of utmost efficiency, accountability and profitability.
It is to the credit of Kachukwu that after 6 years of the comatose state of the nation’s crude oil pipelines, it took his bold intervention for the Federal Government to engage the professional expertise of an indigenous oil and gas outfit to successfully remediate, repair and maintain and provide security services on the Bonny to Port-Harcourt and Excravos to Warri pipeline segments.
It would be recalled that before now, it cost the nation a huge chunk of its hard-earned resources to sustain the engagement of marine vessels to transport crude oil to the refineries; more so, when there was a sharp drop in the price of oil at the international market which adversely affected accruable revenue to the federation account.
At the moment, there has been seamless and continuous pumping of crude oil through the aforementioned pipelines. The only interruption till date has been the criminal activities of some faceless militant groups, including the illegal bunkering activities being undertaken by oil thieves and other economic saboteurs.
For many Nigerians, Kachukwu should be applauded for the unpopular but plausible decision he took for the partial removal of fuel subsidy sometimes in 2016. This was one painful reality that Nigerians never wanted to experience, but today, the Nigerian people are happier for it as they can now drive into any petrol station of their choice with ease and get products without stress or having to wait endlessly on queues to be served.
It is heartwarming to note that at present, the build-up of tension and hostilities in the Niger Delta Region is beginning to give way for constructive dialogue. This cheering news can only be attributed to the untiring efforts of Dr. Kachukwu to ensure that there is sustainable peace and stability in the Niger Delta, which is very vital to the production of crude oil – both for local consumption and export to the international market.
The confidence and peace – building initiatives embarked upon by the federal government through the engagement of relevant stakeholders in the Niger Delta and the recent visits of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to the creeks and other Niger Delta communities has gone a long way of providing a formidable platform for the federal government and concerned interests to sit down on the round table to discuss all the issues arising. Without doubt, this is a noble idea of the Buhari’s Administration facilitated by Kachukwu.
Indeed, to the glory of God, Kachukwu is working; the petroleum sector is becoming more efficient, while Nigeria is moving towards economic progress and prosperity – for all and sundry.
• Odoigbe of the Joint Professionals Training and Support International wrote in from Abuja.