Butterfly-Transformation The transformation agenda of President Godluck Ebele Jonathan administration is anchored on driving the country through the perspectives of continuity, consistency and commitment (3Cs). It was the disregard for the 3Cs that had resulted in rising unemployment, inequality and poverty. Poised as ever to correct the errors of the past, the regime has come forth with a holistic agenda aimed at the transformation of the Nigerian state with a strategy that gives cognizance to these 3Cs in the life of the administration.

The transformation plan draws its inspiration from President Jonathan’s electoral promises, the Vision 20:2020 and the first National Implementation Plan (NIP). The agenda is based on a set of priority policies and programmes which, when implemented, would transform the Nigerian economy to greater heights.

Job Creation
 
Job creation is a cardinal objective of the President Jonathan’s Presidency. In the drive to lop off the unemployment tentacle, the government will pursue policy measures to reinvigorate several sectors of the economy and enhance their employment-generating potential. This will entail implementing a youth employment safety net support programme that includes conditional cash transfer and vocational training; development of industrial clusters; reviewing of university curricular to align learning with industry job requirements; promotion of apprenticeship/work experience programmes and joint ventures; enforcement of mandatory sub-contracting and partnering with locals by foreign construction companies, and implementation of mandatory skills transfer to Nigerians by foreign construction companies.


The Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in a detailed statement, aptly captured the challenge and the solution. “The biggest challenge we have is creating jobs for our youths. 25 percent of the working-age population is outside of the labour force. Youth unemployment is rising. The priority is, how do we take care of that problem? We need several things to happen. We need to maintain macroeconomic stability. We could run a tighter fiscal policy. We have a serious power problem, which is a binding constraint on economic growth. One of the exciting things is the potential to spur that.

“Agriculture has been growing at seven to eight per cent. And we have the ability to assure our own food security as well as develop a value-chain for exports. But we need to do agriculture differently to create jobs and make it attractive to youths. We need to modernize agriculture. We need to take a value-chain approach going from farm to market and giving them access to improved technology in terms of seeds, fertilizers and water management. We have cases of things going to waste – tomatoes, potatoes, all sorts of produce. If you modernize agriculture, it is much more attractive for youth to stay than the old subsistence hoe and machete approach. That is one place where we can create more jobs. Two, we have 34 unexploited minerals quite apart from oil and gas – many of them in commercially exploitable quantities. It is an amazingly rich country. We need the infrastructure to make exploitation possible. And if you do that from a value-chain approach – not just mining the thing but transforming it – that can create jobs.

“And the entertainment industry ‘Nollywood’; 40 movies a week, $250 million per annum. They employ our young people, so it is perfect. The appeal is worldwide. Where you have people of African descent they love this stuff. I was in Belize and people stopped me on the street and they said, ‘Are you Nigerian? We love your movies.’ The thing is not to interfere – it has grown on its own. To help it improve, two things are needed. Improvement in quality: That takes building capacity, access to finance. And second is intellectual property. We need to regulate; because part of the problem is that they are not realizing value because things are copied. You hear this from the U.S. in regard to China, and the argument is that China will eventually regulate when they have things to protect. This discussion is very alive in Nigeria. The industry is asking for help; protecting them from piracy – that we need to build the capacity of our intellectual property committees.”

At the Job Creation Summit which President Jonathan hosted sometime ago, he reiterated his determination to initiate various intervention programmes in the key productive sectors of the economy in all states of the federation, based on their comparative advantage, to provide incentives for the flow of capital to the real sectors, to increase productivity and achieve widespread employment generation, especially for urban and rural youth nationwide. This is aimed at creating about 1.5 million income-generating employments in the labour intensive sectors of the economy, namely agriculture, manufacturing, building and construction.

Other proposals include the consolidation of the Public Works Programme (PWP) to create 1.5 million jobs this year, while a Growth and Employment Pact (GEP) would enable public-private partnerships to enhance growth in construction, ICT, hide and skin, tourism and entertainment sectors.

In line with the Federal Government’s agenda of realizing its job creation objectives, working groups have been set up, including the PWP, Graduate Employment and Business Process, Outsourcing Working Group, Vocational Education and Job Centres, Small and Growing Business and Entrepreneurship Working Group.