The Federal Government, through the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has appealed to the Republic of Korea to help Nigeria in creating more jobs due to the pressure of unemployment in the country.
Ngige made this appeal during the visit of the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Nigeria, Kim Young-Chae, to his office in Abuja.
A statement released by the Deputy Director of Press of the ministry, Charles Akpan, quoted Ngige as saying, “I want you to assist us to create jobs because of the unemployment pressure on us here in this country, especially among the youths and women.
“We want you to assist us in giving agriculture a boost in order to help our farmers. Agriculture is our low-hanging fruit. This will assist our country in developing foreign exchange base, so that we don’t have to spend our limited resources in importing food.
“We request for assistance to enable us to create jobs. Apart from the skill acquisition centre you established in Kogi State, which is in the North Central geopolitical zone, we are thinking that you should establish at least one in the other geopolitical zones, namely, North-East, North-West, South-East, South-West and South-South.”
“Of late, our economy has not been too good. Our economy is based on oil, which is getting old-fashioned. Our production is down due to insecurity problems and price fluctuations. We need your assistance in terms of developing other areas like power.”
Ngige said his ministry had in the past intervened to resolve issues between Korean companies and their staff members, some of them bordering on the closure of the companies.
He said, “We intervened because we know that they are employing Nigerians. We had to save jobs. So, we think that this relationship will continue to grow. We are taking notes of all you said that you are doing, such as the job centre that you have in Kogi State.
“I don’t know the details and the capacity, but we have the Skills Development Department here. If you liaise with the department, we will be able to know the scope of the place and to offer you advice on how we can make it bigger, in order to give our people jobs.”
