Thursday, 19th June 2014…
Votes and proceedings of the previous day were read, amended, and adopted as amended.
The Committee on Civil Society, Labour, Youth and Sports headed by Mrs. Bola Ogunrinade and Comrade Issa Aremu as deputy chairman presented their report.
Recommendation made by the committee and additional recommendation made by delegates were as thus;
RECOGNISING, that young Nigerians between the ages of 18 to 35, represents a third of the country’s population, have the lowest recorded employment ratio, 70% of this group are unemployed, a fact that poses severe consequences for economic development, social cohesion and the political stability for the entire country.
THAT, It has been widely accepted by all delegates at this conference that when, young people are provided with employment opportunities, with the right capacities, they become productive assets and take their part in mainstream society offering the best of their skills, energy and talents.
I won’t bore you with the whole motion. Above is the intro of the motion we (Yadoma Bukar Mandara, Nnaemeka C. Ikegwuonu, Hassan Rilwan, Mosunmola Umoru and Sylvester Okoh) presented to the conference to amend some recommendations made by the committee.
Our recommendations were aimed at strengthening government initiative to build capacity of the youth and create jobs.
We propose the following amendment to the committee recommendations;
- A National Jobs Creation Agency be established through the merger of the National Directorate for Employment (NDE), The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), the YOUWIN Department, the Community Services Women and Youth Employment Project (CSWYE) and Graduate Internship Scheme of SURE-P.
- That the Youth development Fund as proposed by the committee should be for job creation and capacity development, to be administered by the National Jobs creation Agency.
- The fund will consider and fund projects within enterprise development, infrastructure and artisan development.
- The agency will deploy latest satellite mapping and visual imaging for the purpose of documenting number of jobs created. It will also publish a “state of jobs creation in Nigeria” annual report with verifiable records of its achievements. The digital images and annual report must be available to the public.
Conference adopted the recommendation contained in our motion above, saying if implemented will lead to coordinated job creation.
However - Our attempt to reduce the age of Participation of Youths in politics on that day for the second time faced serious defeat and also our recommendation for youth inclusion in politics and political process atleast (15%) also faced defeat– Not like we gonna give up though!
Further recommendation made by delegates and the committee;
- Except otherwise decided, henceforth, judicial officers convicted of corruption or perversion of justice will be liable to 50 years in prison and loss of all official entitlement including gratuity and pensions without an option of fine.
The decision was based on the examples of some Asian countries where the enactment of such laws helped to restore sanity, reduce corruption, abuse of office, instill due process and the rule of law.
- Legislation be enacted by the Federal Government that would stipulate life imprisonment for anyone found guilty of stealing pension and any public fund.
- A law be enacted by the Federal Government to provide for life imprisonment with hard labour for any person convicted of rape; while other laws should be enacted to criminalize the use of children for child labour and for alms.
- Henceforth, any group of workers that remain on strike for more than four weeks shall not be entitled to and not be paid salary for the period and any other time after the four weeks.
- 26% allocation for education in annual law at the federal, state and local government levels to revive the education sector. It is believed that with such increased allocation, the ailing educational system would be revived and sustained.
- Government provides an intervention fund as a matter of priority to revitalize abandoned skill acquisition and vocational training centers throughout the country.
- Delegates rejected the recommendation of the committee on the need for the Nigerian Government to give donor funds to Nigerian NGOs..
- Also a recommendation was made that Nigerian NGOs should show some level of transparency on finances they get from international donors.
- Observing the growing incidence of casualization in the economy that is driven in part by employers’ penchant to cut cost and enhance profitability. It said currently, most employers of labour do not respect the legal provision that after six months of work, the casual workers must be permanently employed. To circumvent this law, such employers resort to terminating the appointment of employees after a couple of months and then quickly re-engaging them on a fresh contract. It was therefore resolved that all multinational companies and government agencies that have employed casual workers for more than six months should be mandated to take immediate steps to convert them to permanent workers.
- On the National Youth Service Corps, a new program was set that it should be split into three phases for it to be repositioned for relevant youth empowerment.
It said the first phase will be a one month orientation; followed by six months of primary assignment, integration and industrial exposure; and lastly, five months of vocational and entrepreneurial skill acquisition.
- Full implementation of the 2nd Nation Youth Policy and Nigerian youth employment Action plan and provision of a legal backing to aid this process.
- States and local government should play a supportive role of provision of logistic and accommodation for youth corps members, though it was recognized that some states already do that.
- Teaching of life skills in secondary school to prepare the youth to coping in the larger society. The committee notes in particular the need to pay attention to family life as it is the bedrock of society. Parents must lay solid foundation for teachers to build on at school. The curriculum of life skills teaching should include;
a. Healthy living style/Sex education
b. Managing time, money and self
c. Effective communication skills
d. Information Communication Skills
e. An understanding of Nigeria and its people
f. Introduction to total quality concept
g. Civic responsibilities
h. Agricultural Orientation
- Review of education policies to include practical application of theories such that the discrimination between B.Sc. and HND become eroded.
- Law backing the establishment of the National sports commission should be finalized and passed by the National assembly.
- The Director General for the National sports commission should be on a tenure basis and should be appointed from outside the civil service.
- Early identification prospective talents and consequential multiplication of training facilities across the nation should be encouraged.
- The encouragement of sport endowment fund and import waivers for sport equipment.
- Adequate and prompt funding of all sports including Paralympics.
- Specialization should be encouraged based on natural resource and physical features e.g swimming at the riverine areas, polo in the north and other areas where there are established cultural festival in wrestling, boxing, fishing and boat regatta etc.
These were some of the recommendations adopted, amongst other serious and unserious recommendations.
The 38 page report of the committee on Civil Society, Youth, Labour and Sports report after much amendment was adopted as amended.
We adjourned at some minutes after 6pm to resume on Monday 9am …. Yes no sitting on Fridays remember?
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Happy holidays. Thank you for sharing.
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