Youths Laud Sanusi’s Call For Unemployment Compensation Policy

·      Analysts, NBS Differ On Figures

B y Chukwudi OHIRI

CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi has called for the introduction of social security measures as a means to fight the growing spate of crime and insecurity in the country.

 

Weeks after the Central Bank of Nigeria’s helmsman, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi stirred the hornet’s nest in Umuahia, Abia State when he in his usual vociferous manner called on the Federal Government to set up an unemployment compensation policy to assist the country’s teeming unemployed youths and make them shun crimes and other deviant lifestyles, youths in Aba have applauded the call, challenging the authorities to implement the policy as a matter of urgency.

Speaking in Umuahia, Abia State as a guest lecturer at the first Abia State Youths Empowerment Summit on the topic; “Youth empowerment as a panacea for insecurity”, Sanusi among other issues called on the government to create a national unemployment policy where unemployed youths would be entitled to some kind of stipends periodically to keep them from the temptation of jumping into crimes and criminality at the least opportunity. To ensure the effectiveness of this policy, Sanusi also suggested the creation and maintenance of biometric and forensic data base for all Nigerians, employed and unemployed to avoid loopholes and for proper administration. “In the South-South and South East, the act of kidnapping, youth restiveness and other violence have become rampant. Specifically, the spate of kidnapping across the country, the incessant wave of crime and armed robbery point to the fact that insecurity is a big challenge to development in Nigeria. “Related to the above is the challenge of poverty level. Governments at all levels are unable to address this because there is no realistic social security programme in Nigeria to meet the people’s basic needs. This often provides the basis for desperation and criminally minded activities,” Sanusi said.

The youth leader and spokesperson for the group, Mr. Boniface Kamalu while commending the recommendations of the CBN czar stressed that “for as long as it does not cost the government at both federal and state levels any material (financial) loss in keeping the youths unemployed, it will continue to pay lip service to the issue of unemployment.” Going further, Kamalu said: “In advanced countries, unemployed persons just as retired or handicapped persons are statutorily being provided for in the annual budget and the lesser the number, the more the government saves from what it ordinarily would have expended on this class of people and more income tax generation. This is why unemployment issue is given top priority during electioneering campaign and national debate and any government that is unable to manage the growth rate of unemployed persons risks losing the general election”

In Nigeria, unemployment matters have remained very topical during and after electioneering campaigns, yet little or nothing is done to shrink the percentage. In fact, provision of employment has now turned to a slogan by successive administrations at federal and state levels with nothing to show for it in the long run.

Recently, the National Bureau of Statistics released the official statistics of unemployment rate putting it at a ‘controversial’ 23.9% between 1999 and 2011. The report highlighted that between the periods under review, Nigeria’s unemployment rate dropped from about 8.7 per cent the 23.9 per cent in 2011. This data more than anything else revealed that between 1999 when the 4^th republic commenced with a lot of sloganeering on the issue of unemployment, not much improvement has been recorded to justify all the rhetoric about job creation by successive administrations till date.

But the Statistician-General, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr. Yemi Kale argued that it is an unfair assessment to say that there has been no improvements at all in the unemployment rate in the country saying: “it is wrong to say that things are not improving. Things are improving, jobs have been created, but the challenge is how can we increase the number of these jobs to balance out?"

 Addressing journalists in Abuja during a stakeholders' consultative forum on the production and management of Ministries, Departments and Agencies’ statistics, the NBS boss also argued that while it could be admitted that economic growth had not brought about the expected impact, it was wrong to say that no impact has been felt at all. He stressed that jobs were being created in the economy. According to Kale, “it is impacting on the lives of Nigerians but maybe not as much or widespread as you would expect. You can't expect a Shoprite to come and hire 2,000 people in one location in Lagos and you say it doesn't impact on the lives of people…When you hear them expanding to other states, that is clearly a sign that they are making money and expanding their businesses. When they are expanding, they hire more people; so you can't say it's not impacting. It is impacting and jobs are being created in this economy. But the problem with jobs is that if you are generating jobs and more people are entering the job market than you can generate, you might have a problem.”

Although official records put the unemployment rate at 23.9%, statisticians and analyst argue that the figure is fraught with deceit. For instance, prior to the release of the figure by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS (apparently in response to a publication in one of the national dailies), the federal government had admitted that there were 39 million jobless and idle citizens of productive age. This figure, if verified cannot represent a 23.9% unemployment rate. In March 2009, the World Bank published a document that Nigeria had about 40 million jobless citizens. The same government did not refute this. As a matter of fact, it actually admitted that about 40 million employable persons were jobless in Nigeria through the Labour Ministry and it was well publicized..

 The question now is, has there been any remarkable improvement between that period and now to warrant a decline given that so many people lost their jobs in the ongoing privatization exercise as well as banking reforms? Although a few companies sprang up recently to add a boost to the unemployment saga, a good number of companies closed shops in Nigeria relocating to Ghana and other neighbouring countries citing high cost of production and more recently, insecurity as reasons. It is probably on these premises that analysts argue that the official figure cannot be anything but half truth.

To expatiate, they argue that based on the admittance to the World Bank figures of 2009 by the FG and the fact that between 2009 and 2011, the rate dropped to 23.9%, going by the NBS data, it therefore implies simultaneously that the 5% percent drop adopted in the World Bank’s figure within the period means the actual unemployment rate would be about 32.77% amounting to some 42 million unemployed persons in raw figure as at 2011, analysts insist.

Ironically, the president of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Peter Esele while fielding questions from journalists during the last Workers’ Day celebration shifted the blame (to a considerable extent) away from the government. He insisted that although government remains the largest employer in the country and also has the capacity to create jobs, it can never create enough. “There is no government all over the world that creates enough jobs for the citizens. But what the government ensures and has a duty to, is to create the right environment for the rest of the citizens and the economy operators to create jobs for others and themselves,” he said.

On why the government has a share in the blame game, Esele said: “I insist that the reason many Nigerians can’t get jobs is because they have no power supply to sustain such job because before they could start any small business, they must incur so much cost to generate power and at last they are weighed down. “The next constraint is the greed of the governments that invent all manner of taxes against the few companies that manage to survive. From the local government to the federal government, the entrepreneur in Nigeria is a victim of multiple taxation and that does not in any way encourage growth or the provision of jobs for the citizens. So any effort of sloganeering by the government on how it plans to solve the unemployment problem without first taking care of these factors that would enable the individuals generate jobs for themselves must remain a failure. It does not matter how many times it sings the song of job creation or invention of platform to rehabilitate the jobless graduates. There is no time they can provide enough, so let them allow the conditions that would make individual efforts at self employment thrive.”

The call by Sanusi for ‘Unemployment Compensation Policy’ may have come pursuant to the insecurity question presently bedeviling the country, but it could not have come at a better time. The earlier the authorities hearken to this call, the better for the overall growth, peace and tranquility in the polity.

 

Between Aregbesola’s Phone and the National Treasury

                                                                        By Chukwudi OHIRI

When Chinagoro (aka African China), a popular Nigerian musician released his album titled ‘Mr. President’ in 2005, it was as if he saw tomorrow. Part of the lyrics of the song read: “…Poor man wey thief magi Omo, dem go show im face for crime fighter [crime fighter]; Rich man wey thief money Omo, we no dey see their face for crime fighter…”and so on. It was like a joke and people while dancing to the melodious rhythm rarely pondered on the embedded message which the song represented.

Each passing day, the unfolding events in Nigeria vis-vis the fight against corruption bring the reality of the music to stare and mock us in the face like a lunatic. Yet, we pretend that all is well.

Not too long ago, one of the eight civil servants accused of complicity in the illegal diversion of over N40 billion from the Nigeria Police Pension Funds, Mr. John Yakubu Yusufu, (former Director in the Police Pension office) who confessed to the charges of connivance with the others to steal about N23 billion was sentenced to only two years imprisonment with an option of N750,000 fine. This court judgment attracted public outcry, but the apologists of Justice Abubakar Talba of Abuja High Court, Gudu District who delivered the controversial judgment rallied support for their principal, albeit, not on moral grounds, but on the grounds of technical defects in our constitution. For them, he acted within the ambits of the law. For most discerning Nigerians, that was not the first of its kind and will certainly not be the last where a corrupt official will be handed down a ludicrous penalty for looting the national coffers.

What baffled many Nigerians is the case of a certain 31-year-old Kelvin Ighodalo who was recently sentenced to 45 years imprisonment for stealing a Sony Ericsson phone belonging to Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State. This sentence drew the irk of the public as analyst now ask the question: ‘Between Aregbesola’s phone and the national treasury, which one is more sacred? Has the law which gave Yusufu, the pension fraudster a ridiculous sentence for stealing from the national treasury changed over night or are there laws for the rich and yet another for the poor?

Ighodalo according to the allegation, stole a phone estimated to be worth N50,000 from Aregbesola on November 27, 2010, when the governor was being inaugurated at Government Technical College, Osogbo. In the case of Ighodalo the GSM thief, Justice Oyejide Falola of Osogbo High Court who presided over the case found him guilty on six counts, which included conspiracy, stealing and fraud and therefore sentenced him to 10-year imprisonment for the first three counts and five years for each of the last three which included impersonation, obtaining property by falsehood and collusion. The jail term is to run concurrently implying that Ighodalo will spend the next 10 years behind bars.

Justifying the judgment, Falola, who ruled that Ighodalo deserved the jail term, held that the convict used the phone to obtain N500, 000 from the Owa of Ilesa, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran, while he obtained N200, 000 from Mr Shengen Rahman, an associate of the governor.

On his part, Yusuf voluntarily confessed to stealing from the Police pension fund, a whopping N23Billion and as penalty, he bagged a fine of N750,000 as an alternative to 2 years imprisonment. Who is fooling who?

While this act is condemnable, it is instructive to note that thousands, if not millions of retired police officers died without receiving their pensions. Many police officers lost loved ones, prestige, dignity and unquantifiable valuables as a result of unpaid pensions and yet, the crime was not viewed in the eyes of the law and its interpreters as heinous enough to attract more excruciating penalties.

Mr. John Yakubu Yusufu’s case sighted here is even a tip of the iceberg. What about those public officials who still walk free on the streets with every paraphernalia of Very Importance Personality (VIP) in the society. Some are serving members of the national Assembly while others are occupying one executive position or the other.

 The case of former police Inspector General, Tafa Balogun will always remain a celebrated case study where the cancerous concept of plea bargaining ridiculed our judicial system and the much touted war against corruption. Balogun was said to have incorporated some companies to loot the police treasury through bribes and kickbacks on contracts. Billions of naira were fraudulently withdrawn by him from the police account and transferred to the companies to buy shares andanded properties and foreign currency. During his trial, the Judge, Justice Binta Nyako in her judgment said she considered the fact that Balogun was a “first offender” and had “shown remorse” throughout the trial. “I hereby sentence the accused to a term of six months’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 naira (3,846 US dollars) on each of the eight charges against him,” said Nyako. Before Nigerians could spell ‘jack’ Balogun was out of jail, his term of less than six months already served out of which 67 days already spent in detention during the trial was deducted. Can a poor Nigerian receive this kind of treatment? The answer is, to avoid an error of over generalization, ‘rare’.

If anyone ever thought Balogun’s case was flabbergasting, that person erred in judgment as Cecilia Ibru’s case was even more astonishing. She was the former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Oceanic Bank International Plc. She was found culpable of embezzling billions of Naira with which she acquired property at choice places almost the world over in 2010. Mrs. Ibru was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in a plea bar. Unike Balogun, who even spent about six months in the prison, Ibru never saw the fore walls of any prison. She was convicted to serve six months each on a three-count charge after the withdrawal of all the charges with the exception of the three charges which were counts 14, 17 and 23 to which she pleaded guilty but she served her jail in a special hospital and not in the prison, a privilege that no ordinary citizen of this country can ever dream of receiving.

How about Lucky Igbinedion was governor of Edo from 1999-2007? He was charged with embezzling 2.9 billion naira and he pleaded guilty to one count of corruption in a plea bargain at a Federal High Court in Enugu. He was fined to refund about 500 million and forfeit three properties which included one in the capital Abuja. This was all he got for draining the public coffers to the tune of N2.9billion.

DSP Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former governor of Bayelsa State was sentenced to two years imprisonment for financial crimes against his state in July 2007 under a plea bargain arrangement. Much to the chagrin of many Nigerians, he served for only a few months as he was said to have been in detention since December 2005. Few months ago, he was granted presidential pardon by President Goodluck Jonathan who, without mincing words acknowledged him as his political mentor. Only in Nigeria can these things happen in such a reckless abandon. Millions are languishing in awaiting trial detention custodies and yet, they have not received judgment fair or foul. Many were in detention for more than the attainable jail term for their offences and yet, they are made to face the full weight of the law when they finally get judgment just because they are ‘ordinary’ citizens.

It could be recalled that before Ibori’s conviction in UK, a Nigerian Court in Asaba, Delta State headed by Justice Marcel Awokulehin had dismissed all the charges brought against the former governor only for him to be found guilty of the same charges by a court in the UK. James Ibori was governor of Delta State between May 1999 and May 2007. He admitted 10 counts of conspiracy to fraud and money laundering and was sentenced under a plea bargain arrangement.

The point being drawn from all these is that our judicial system which is inundated with selective justice system must be reviewed with a view to ensuring that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. Our priorities must be set right such that national interest takes its rightful place in the scheme things. Between Aregbesola’s phone and the national treasury which is being wantonly looted with impunity, we must ask ourselves, which one is more sacred to be desecrated?