Unemployed youths carrying arms to vent their anger on elite — FG

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, says unemployment and under-employment are fuelling insecurity in the country.

According to him, the situation has reached a point where nobody is safe.

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He spoke in Abuja while receiving the national officers of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, led by its president, Chinedu Okoronkwo.

He said: ‘’Insecurity, as you rightly pointed out, is caused by people who feel cheated by the society. They carry arms, weapons to vent their anger on the elite. So, the elite in Nigeria are in danger, including me, all of us.

‘’Hence, the sooner we start talking to elite in employer organizations like yours (IPMAN) the better. So, we can curb this malady and prevent it from escalating. 

 “When you refer to the nexus between job vulnerability and insecurity, you hit the nail on the head. A lot of insecurity problems we have today is caused by unemployment and underemployment.

‘’In underemployment, people are not making up to the National  Minimum Wage or working up to  8 hours a week which is the ILO standard for full employment. There is a lot danger if we fail to effectively tackle this. But we’re doing our best.”

Ngige urged employers of labour and labour unions to pay greater attention to formalisation of workers, noting that unemployment and indecent jobs are huge incubators of national insecurity.

Earlier, Okonkwo said their visit was to seek the collaboration of the Ministry of Labour in keying into the Federal Government’s Micro Pension Plan for millions of workers in its employ, hence the place of the National Pension Commission in the visit.