Our priority is to create more jobs – Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in Abuja said that the priority of his administration “is to create as many jobs as possible.”

He spoke during an audience with the National Executive Council of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers led by its President, Comrade John Adaji, at the State House, Abuja.

President Buhari, according to a statement by the Special Adviser on Media and publicity, Femi Adesina, said the Federal Government deployed limited resources to job-creating sectors like agriculture and mining in the last four years.

Lamenting the closure of textile factories especially in the North which gave rise to crimes, he said, “We promoted policies that will support local industries such as import restrictions. We introduced programmes that provided affordable and accessible capital to both large and cottage industries.”

He added that, “We also introduced Executive Orders that encouraged the procurement of Made in Nigeria goods and services.”

According to him, his administration would continue to support the above policies and programmes in the years ahead, stressing: “We will not allow Nigeria to return to the days of exporting jobs through the importation of food and clothing items which can be produced locally. We owe this to the over 200 million Nigerians.”

He noted that the textile and garmenting sector has the potential to create millions of jobs and will therefore, remain one of the priority sectors for the administration.

Referring to his recent directive to all Government uniformed institutions to use locally produced garments, President Buhari said unbelievable number of jobs will be created when the military, police, para-military organisations including the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), fully patronise local industries.

He urged State Governments to buy into this policy for their schools, hospitals and other institutions.

On the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) which Nigeria recently signed, President Buhari said, “We have developed a comprehensive strategy to fully optimise the benefits” with necessary safeguards in place.

He stressed that “Our priority remains to create jobs in Africa for Africans using a large proportion of African raw materials.”

Speaking on behalf of the Union, the General Secretary, Comrade Issa Aremu, commended President Buhari for being the first Nigerian leader to grant the 41-year-old body an audience, and making the revival of the textile industry a campaign topic.

Bemoaning the closure of hundreds of textile factories which used to employ “millions of workers more than the workforce of the Federal Government in the 70s and 80s,” he also saluted the textile-friendly policies of the administration such as the interventions by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Executive Order on the use of local garments by uniformed organisations among others.

Pledging to support the administration to “keep our youths out of the streets,” the Union urged that the incidence of smuggling be checked in order to maximise the job-creating benefits of the textile industry.

President Buhari was decorated as the Life Patron of the Union in appreciation of his textile-friendly efforts.

Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, National President Textiles Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (TGTWN), Comrade John Adaji, said “There are three things that actually brought us for this visit. First, we came to congratulate Mr. President after his well-deserved victory of the election that took place this year and it’s historic to note that probably this is the first time that leadership of our great union is paying such a visit to a sitting president.

“So it’s remarkable. Secondly, we realized also that we have a president that we can call a working president as far as the evidences in the ground shows that he is committed, he has the passion for the textile industry and the manufacturing sector in general and what he is doing recently. Most especially through the central bank Governor, it’s so marvelous and we can see some lights coming after somethings we have been going through.

“We are seeing some positive development especially through the executive order 003 that he gave. The CBN Governor is equally managing the TGT policy very well and we are here to commend him and to equally remind him that besides this good work that is going on there are other little things that can delay us in the movement from where we are now to those old good days.

“Largely, it’s issue of smuggling and we have presented that to Mr President,” he stated

On the full implementation of the new national minimum wage, Comrade Adaji said, “We are not just textile members, we are an affiliate of Nigeria Labour Congress, I myself a NEC member and it’s the same thing with our own amiable General Secretary. As a member of NLC, it’s a struggle that he equally particularly belonged to the committee of salaries and wages commission.

“So it’s issue that we cannot… and the emphasis that until people are well paid, otherwise the purchasing power cannot be there to buy the print that we produce. So we are appreciated and commended the president for signing that bill into law.

The General Secretary of the Textile Union, Comrade Isa Aremu said, the issue of the new minimum wage is quite remarkable, noting that it is the fifth national minimum wage that Nigeria would sign.

“It started in 1981, and in that order this is the fifth one and we are happy.”

On the challenging facing the implementation of the new minimum wage, Aremu said “Even that we are now talking on how to realize the details of minimum wage it’s commendable for the president. There is no way Nigerian economy can bounce back without effective purchasing power for the citizens of Nigeria and the president agreed with us that it would be nice that textile workers do not just produce textile but they should also be able to buy what they produce and that is why we think it’s a good economics for Nigeria, it’s smart economics to pay the working people very well.

“We also used the opportunity to say this president is labour friendly. This is the only president that for the first time looked the eyes of governors regardless of party and said how do you sleep without paying your workforce.

“For me it’s very remarkable, he has paid the pensioners of the Nigeria Airways, who have been owed a lot from Obasanjo era. And on the last note, we are not just workers in the workplaces; we are also citizens so we must also be concerned with what is going on.

“Our organization is Textile Garments and Tailoring Workers we are also affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress which means if there is no nation there cannot be our union. If there is no Nigeria, there can’t be Nigeria Labour Congress so we reaffirm our commitment to the unity and indivisibility of the federal republic of Nigeria.

“We know the security challenges going on but the solution is economic development. All these boys who should be working in the factories are bing indoctrinated, can you imagine?

“The only way you can explain it is massive unemployment and idle capacity. And once we reopened textile mills many of them would be engaged and the president agreed that the solution to criminality, robbery and to even insurgency is to build a productive manufacturing Nigeria textile union.

“You know in the 70s when the youth were working we never had these kinds of problems up to early 80s.

“In the morning you will be wondering where are the human beings, it is only when they closed the first shift you would see people coming out.

“God’s willing we intend to bring it back and President Buhari is doing a good job in that respect.”

Asked if they discussed the issue of consequential adjustment which has been said to delay the implementation of the new minimum wage, Aremu explained that normally when there is a new minimum wage, there is a problem of adjustment.

“And that has been put in place. Now the wages commission of which I served was also a party to bringing about the new minimum wage and they are already meeting together with the relevant public sector unions to make it possible.

“Don’t forget that minimum wage is not only for public sector it’s for the entire country, in our sector we have already implemented it, we have also made the adjustment.

“And I think the same way we negotiated the new minimum wage we would be able to negotiate the adjustment in a very positive way.

“Don’t forget that it took us 18 months to get the new minimum wage. A little more discussion and negotiations for us to have a total adjustment that would be useful would not be far-fetched but let me also say that only NLC would make final pronouncement in this,” he said