Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations in Nigeria on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to devise workable means of ending insecurity in the country.
Gbenga Komolafe, General Secretary of the organization, made the call while briefing newsmen at the Nigerian Labour Congress meeting ahead of May Day celebration in Lagos.
He advised the Federal Government to re-route the nation’s economy on the path of growth to create more jobs for the teeming population.
Komolafe noted that if Nigerians were gainfully employed, especially the youth, it will go a long way in reducing the security challenge the country was facing.
He said: “The latest estimates by the United Nations put Nigeria’s population at 201 million. This is amid rising wave of insecurity, unemployment, poor infrastructure, inadequate transportation and healthcare facilities.”
The scribe said that unless the issues of insecurity, employment, lack of access to health care facilities, among others were adequately tackled, despondency among the population would continue to grow.
He decried the living condition of some Nigerians, especially workers in the informal and formal sectors, as they joined the rest of the world to celebrate workers’ day.
He said: “It is high time government at all levels fixed their priority right to restore hope to the people, as critical services such as electricity and potable water supply have been dwindling.
“We use 2019 worker’s day to express our solidarity with Nigerians in the informal sector. Apart from the indignities of daily harassments on the streets, we deplore the institutional criminalisation meted out to informal workers.
“It is against this backdrop that we condemn unequivocally the passage of a new bill by the Nigerian senate to clamp down on informal workers.
“We also use this occasion to call on the Federal Government to make the recently launched Micro Pension Scheme for the self-employed meaningful.”
Advertisement
