If the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) is to be believed, the President Goodluck Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has not created a single job for any Nigerian in its 15 years in power. As implausible as this sounds, the PDP, in its defence, often only says it has created millions of jobs, a claim that the APC, not unexpectedly, rejects. It is therefore incumbent on Nigerians to ignore the propaganda from both sides, and determine what the facts are with regards to job creation.
Whether it is one job for one individual or millions of jobs for millions of people, jobs are not created in a vacuum. Jobs are created to either propel the process of production in a specific industry, or to provide a required service. As such, it should be relatively easy to determine where jobs have been created once a fact-based study of the different industry sectors is carried out.
On the face of it, the charge from the APC that the PDP has not provided any new jobs in its 15 years in power is obviously not true. One industry that readily gives the lie to APC’s assertion is the telecoms industry. Before the advent of the first PDP government in 1999, official statistics placed the number of telephone lines in Nigeria at 492,000 out of an installed capacity for 700,000 lines. Today, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) reports 133,282,003 active telephone lines in Nigeria as of August 2014. It is impossible that such a massive leap in telephone connectivity could have occurred without triggering a corresponding increase in the number of jobs in the industry.
Indeed, apart from the engineers needed to run the sophisticated telecoms equipment, support staff from human resources personnel through accountants to customer service executives, etc, now work in the industry. Moreover, as is the case with virtually any industry, massive growth in the telecoms industry has triggered a supply chain multiplier effect which translates to unquantifiable number of jobs. These range from workers needed to build base stations right down to street corner vendors who live on the commissions from selling the airtime cards printed by the telecoms companies.
Agriculture has also received a visible boost during the Jonathan administration. This is reflected in the fact that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has presented Nigeria with an award for achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on Hunger three years ahead of the 2015 target date set for the MDG. To be fair, the FAO award did not come by happenstance. Government policies in the agriculture sector made achieving the MDG on Hunger ahead of schedule possible. It is safe to assume that since crops do not grow or harvest themselves, nor do animals rear themselves, the policies of government must have engendered the creation of jobs.
As a matter of fact, President Jonathan said in his 2014 Independence Day Broadcast that his administration is developing Nigeria’s water resources in order to bolster food production and job creation. Additionally, the construction of nine dams across the country in 2013 increased the volume of water reservoirs by 422 million cubic metres. Jonathan further reported that, “Through our irrigation and drainage programme, we have increased the total irrigated area by over 31,000 hectares creating jobs for over 75,000 farming families while increasing production of over 400,000 metric tons of assorted irrigated food products.” The average Nigerian household typically has six members, with often higher numbers in some parts of the country. But even at an average of six, new jobs for over 75,000 farming families readily translates to at least 450,000 new jobs in agriculture in 2013 alone.
Another industry that has witnessed factual phenomenal growth during the Jonathan administration is the cement industry. In 2002, Nigeria produced only 2 million metric tonnes of cement. Fast forward to 2014 and Nigeria has a cement production capacity of 28.5 million metric tonnes. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, recently gave specific figures about the jobs in the cement production. He said, “In 2011, the ministry could only account for 600,000 jobs in cement production but now the ministry can account for over 2.3 million jobs.”
Aganga also gave figures for the sugar industry. According to him, “In the sugar industry, the number of jobs in 2011 before President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration was 3,860 but today, we have about 180,000 jobs.” Aganga explained how the growth was achieved. “Investment in sugarcane was 100 million dollars before President Jonathan came on board but today, it has hit N3.2 billion,” he said.
In the same vein, the Minister for Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is also the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, has equally reported some significant job figures. In early 2014 while discussing matters of youth development in the Northern part of the country with representatives of the Arewa Youth Forum, Okonjo-Iweala said:
“After two months of methodological work, the statisticians have come up with the data that 1.8 million people in the country enter the job market yearly.” She went on to add, “last year we were able to create 1.6 million jobs. So we are getting close to the 1.8 million that enter the job market.”
Furthermore, Okonjo-Iweala also said: “Through YouWin programme, we have had 3,600 winners, among whom 2,400 winners have created 27,000 jobs so far. Our target is to create a minimum of 80,000 jobs through this. Through SURE-P, so far we have created 120,000 jobs.”
While this is not an exhaustive list, it is clear that the APC missed it on the issue of jobs as the PDP has indeed created millions of jobs, especially under President Jonathan.
Written by Chukwuka Ezendiaru.
Chukwukaezendiaru200@yahoo.com
