NBS’ Job Data On Rivers, Suspect -Okah

Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Barrister Emma Okah says the recent statistics claimed to have been made available by the National Bureau of Statistics on unemployment in the state is suspect.
Speaking at a phone-in programme organised by Siliverbird Communications in Port Harcourt, at the weekend, Okah said the basis for the statistics was yet to be made public.
“The basis for the statistics is suspect because government does not know how it was arrived at”, Okah declared.
The commissioner also said that often, such statistics were a reflection of deliberate media ploy to paint the state in bad light.
He, however, said that the state government will not be deterred, while disclosing plans to roll out a job-enhancing platform that will harness skills and employers of labour in the state.
Okah explained that so far, the Rivers State Government was the highest employer of labour, but added that there were limits to which government can provide jobs for the teeming youth.
On why there was high incidence of unemployment, Okah blamed the Federal Government’s poor policies and programmes, pointing out that most policies of the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government have only negatively affected the public and private sectors.
He further held that unemployment was a national phenomenon, and not common to Rivers State as currently being circulated in the media.
“The issue is that a lot of people are out of jobs, and there is high unemployment in Nigeria … And so, we have considered this as the usual way Rivers State had been portrayed in the media”, the commissioner said.
Citing other factors that may be responsible for lack of jobs in most Niger Delta states, Okah argued that there was no way the oil industry will absorb all job seekers, as he held that the population explosion in Rivers State was due to the crisis in the North and other parts of the country.
He, however, assured that “let us see how we can reduce that figure and that is what Rivers State Government is set out to do”.