Nigeria is sitting on time bomb over unemployment-FIWON

By allcitynews.ng

The leadership of Federationof Informal Workers of Nigeria (FIWON) has warned federal government against treating the large unemployment rate with levity.

Noting that the country is sitting on time bomb and keg of gunpowder which can explode any moment, he blamed some state governments who in the name of labelling some areas as shanties have been destroying means of livelihoods of those who try to survive without provision of better alternative for them.

The General Secretary of Federation of Informal Workers of Nigeria (FIWON), Comrade Gbenga Komolafe who made this known said he wondered why rather than creating conducive business environment by uplifting small and medium-scale businesses, government of Lagos State and other states are pulling down business-outfits without provision of better alternative.

According Komolafe, “It has been hell on earth in the past months based on Naira redesigned period. Just as some people and businesses were trying to start from the scratch after the Naira redesign, then came fuel subsidy removal which was like last the straw that broke the camel’s back.

All these happened without any alternative for survival for macro and micro businesses, based on unbearable harsh business environment, that affected members in the informal sector.

Rather than any palliative or bailout by government, micro and macroeconomic is being suppressed and suffocated by government.

As micro macroeconomic are mirrors with which Nigerians and the global community view the country’s economic development, yet many of them have been frustrated out of their business due to harsh business environment with many workers being thrown into labour market.

By this act, government is calling for anarchy when people can longer protest against bad governace. Rather than addressing the demands of those protesters, they are describing agents of opposition parties who are being sponsored by opposition parties.

In addition, Komolafe said, the time bomb that will soon explode is because the masses who could not bottle up their grievances anymore will burst into the streets just as it happened in Niger State few days ago.

It would be recalled that International Labour Organisation (ILO) few months ago predicted that two million workers may lose their jobs this year, as the global unemployment rate will be up from 5.1 per cent in 2023 to 5.2 per cent before end of first quarter of this year 2024.

While the leadership of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) said number of jobs lost in the manufacturing sector rose to the highest in three years for the first half of 2023.

In MAN’s latest half-yearly review report, the number increased by 108.7 percent to 3,567 in H1 from 1,709 in the same period of 2022. It also grew by 31.7 percent to 2,708 in H2 of last year.