President of the Trade Union Congress, Comrade Festus Osifo has called on the Federal Government to give priority to employment generation avenues, including putting modalities in place to check the level of inflation in the country.
Osifo gave the advice while welcoming delegates to the 1st Quadrennial Delegates Conference and 20th Anniversary of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria in Abuja, on Friday.
He said unemployment which is getting to its peak, banditry which became rife with attacks recorded in Plateau, Benue and Kwara states where about 200 Nigerians lost their lives is fueling food shortages and general insecurity.
The TUC President also lamented the poor state of education, a situation he said had been worsened by the growing number of out of school children.
According to TUC, since education is listed on the concurrent lists, the Federal and States should collaborate more to reduce, if not eliminate the out of school children population which is hoovering between 20-40 million currently.
He also decried the trend of casualition of workers in the country, insisting that it doesn’t speak well of a country, having all the resources both material and capital to create decent jobs for the citizens.
His words, “As a country we are experiencing economic difficulties and workers are the worst hit and on a daily basis our naira is depreciating.
“Beyond the naira devaluation, today workers cannot go to farm anymore because of insecurity, this is a major reason why food is becoming very expensive, we call on government to take decisive steps to address the issue of insecurity.
“Another issue that must be addressed is the level of unemployment in the country, when the people are unemployed you are indirectly feeding insecurity, govt should create sufficient avenues for employment.”
Speaking on education, Osifo said the number of out of school children is alarming, “saying, “the more you educate people especially children the better they become members of the society.
We cannot have a country, where you have between 20 to 40 million out of school population because education is on the concurrent lists, the state and federal government have to find a way to collaborate and address it, if not, it gives room for child labour”.
