Recession: Ireland seeks stronger ties with Nigeria
The Republic of Ireland has sought renewed social partnership with Nigeria in view of rampant cases of labour unrest occasioned by the dwindling economy. The Irish ambassador to Nigeria, Sean Hoy stated this when he visited the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige in Abuja on Thursday The ambassador said stronger ties […]
The Republic of Ireland has sought renewed social partnership with Nigeria in view of rampant cases of labour unrest occasioned by the dwindling economy.
The Irish ambassador to Nigeria, Sean Hoy stated this when he visited the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige in Abuja on Thursday
The ambassador said stronger ties would enable Nigeria benefit from the Irish experience even as he said that `tough times often give rise to adverse labour relations.`
In his response, Dr. Ngige noted that every nation passes through phases of development, saying that the determination of a people was always critical to pull through such situations.
“Your country, Ireland has passed through similar experience, a crushing recession and emerged from it. Nigeria would learn from the doggedness of the Irish people and also emerge from recession,” Ngige said.
He added that labour relations in a depressed economy all over the world was usually frosty as a result of dwindling earnings on the part of workers and employers, stressing that the cardinal focus of the present administration was to stem down job losses in a situation where government was purely handicapped to create many new jobs for the expectant population.
He further said Nigeria was mindful of unsettling her social equilibrium, hence, the determined efforts of government to expand social investment net to cushion the effects of recession, ease hardship and curb social unrest.
“We are diversifying into agriculture and mining to create jobs for the people. We are also focusing on social security. Out of 500,000 youths captured in our social intervention programme, 200, 000 are already working while plans are in top gear to take on the rest. We are investing on skills acquisition for these youths. The Conditional Cash Transfer has also taken off in nine states. By the end of February, we will take the number to 18 states while the remaining states are targeted for inclusion by the middle of the year.
“We are doing all we can as government to move Nigeria out of recession. There is nothing permanent in life. So, Nigeria will come out of recession. I just came in from the inaugural meeting of the Federal Government Committee on Food Security as well as that on Social Investment. We are working to make sure we have enough food to feed ourselves,”he said.