An economic expert, Paul Alaje, has criticised the plan of the Federal Government to offer short-term jobs to 774,000 Nigerian youths, saying it is not sustainable.
Instead, Alaje advised the government to empower the nation’s youths in mechanised agricultural services if the country must tackle its high rate of unemployment.
Speaking on a radio programme in Osogbo, Alaje called on the Federal Government to mandate all members of the National Youths Service Corps to go into mechanised farming, adding that the nation should be thinking in the direction of skilled employment and not waste time on jobs that would only last for three months.
He said it was high time the nation stopped using graduates as sweepers, traffic wardens and refuse packers in the name of jobs. To Alaje, such jobs are ridiculing the country.
He said, “It is high time our governments stopped doing the same thing that has yielded failures in the past. Skilled job is the way to go. I have said this times without number that the Federal Government should mandate all corps members to go to farm. We are not asking them to farm with cutlass and hoes but they should go into mechanised farming.
“No country can be off the hook of unemployment with short term and unskilled jobs. Nigerian youths should go into skilled jobs and mechanised agricultural services. Short-term jobs like the FG’s plan of recruiting 774,000 youths, is not sustainable.”
Reacting to the heated argument that broke out between the Minister of State for Labour, Employment and Productivity, Festus Keyamo, and the Federal Lawmakers following the former’s refusal to apologise after legislators accused him of raising his voice against them, Alaje said, “Keyamo is standing against what has been in the system.”
