APC governors brainstorm on job creation strategies

The Progressive Governors Forum, the umbrella body of states governed by the All Progressives Congress, has embarked on policy design sessions to tackle Nigeria’s growing employment deficit.



The PGF described unemployment as one of the major economic and security challenges confronting Nigeria today.

To achieve this objective, the forum on Tuesday set up a team of experts made up of economists, policy development experts, commissioners of economic planning from APC states and other technocrats to develop a workable solution to the unemployment question.

Speaking during the inauguration of the policy design session, Chairman of the PGF and governor of Imo state, Chief Rochas 0korocha, challenged members of the team to ensure that they come up with “workable and easily implementable solutions to mitigate the problem of unemployment plaguing our society.”

The governor, who was represented by the Imo state Commissioner of Planning, Ms Adaora Ijezie, said that the policy design session was part of the APC’s approach to win the confidence of Nigerians.

According to the governor, the party was determined to ensure a total overhaul of the present system which had stagnated development, and only paid lip service to the issues of insecurity and worsening poverty.

Also speaking at the event, the Ogun state governor and host of the session, Senator Ibikunle Amosun said that the policy design
sessions were a follow-up to the Progressive Governance Lecture held in Ibadan, three weeks ago.

The Ibadan lecture examined unemployment and the crisis of development in Nigeria.

The governor explained that APC states would go beyond mere proclamations, and back up their words with actions by designing policies to create jobs in all sectors of the economy.

Amosun tasked the participants to work assiduously to design policies that recognize the similarities and peculiarities
of individual APC states and work out strategies that each state would adopt easily to stimulate job creation, which he described as critical to security and social stability, which the PDP had failed to do.