Indigenous Artisans Hail Exit Of Foreigners …As Developers Decry Shortage

Indigenous artisans have
expressed happiness that the foreigners among them were leaving the country in droves due to the fall in the naira.
Public Relations Officer of Niger Delta Indigenous Artisan Association of Nigeria (NDIAAN), Benjamine Aribibia who in a chat with The Tide declared this in Port Harcourt, Monday, also said, “they want to overrun us”.
Aribibia stated that developers preferred to use artisans from neighbouring African countries because they provided cheap labour, not that they were better skilled than the indigenes.
He stated, “we are not gloating that things have gone bad for them, but it is good for our nation’s development that they are leaving, it will afford employment opportunities for our youths.
“Their exit would also help improve our skills because, now we will have jobs regularly and you know the longer you do a particular thing, the better you’d become”, he continued.
Following the unfavourable government policies and liquidity crises facing the nation’s economy, building and construction industry, has been hit the hardest as activities have slowed down due to non-implementation of building contracts coupled with the devaluation of the naira.
Meanwhile, developers have decried the shortage of artisans following their exit from the country.
They relied on skilled workers from Togo, Benin Republic, Chad and Ghana as they claimed that Nigerian skilled workers have dumped their trade for criminality.
A construction engineer and Chief Executive Officer, Eben-Del, Global Resources, Ebenzer Oladele, lamented, “the devaluation of the naira has made working in the country less attractive to foreign artisans and so they are leaving”.

Tonye Nria-Dappa