The foremost Director-General of the National Directorate of Employment, Chief Chuku Wachuku, has advised the Federal Government against sharing money like “Father Christmas”, but rather provide the enabling environment for the private sector to thrive and then create jobs for the teeming labour market.
Wachuku who gave the advice in a media chat with Vanguard in Umuahia, regretted that “there is so much dependency on handouts in the country”, a sad development he blamed on a lack of meaningful source of livelihood.
He said that Government should be more concerned with empowering youths with vocations and trades that would enable them to cater for themselves and their families than give them pittance which would not take them anywhere.
Wachuku who said he had purchased his nomination and expression of interest forms for the Abia Central Senatorial Districts, said that if voted into the red chamber, he would sponsor bills that would translate to soud economic policies.
The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Agricultural and Industrial Entrepreneurs of Nigeria, AIEN, said that Government should not be celebrated for providing infrastructure as that is its primary responsibility.
” Clapping for Government for the provision of infrastructure is like withdrawing money from ATM and thanking the machine for giving you money. Is that not funny? Why then do people pay tax?”
On the rumour that the powers that be were favourably disposed towards ceding the Abia Central Senatorial ticket to the Ikwuano clan as a bait for their support for the Ngwa governorship bid, Wachuku said any plot to deny the Umunneato clan in Abia Central their right of producing Senator Theodore Orji’s successor in 2023 would crumble.
” I don’t understand body language; what I understand is spoken language. Therefore, anybody trying to truncate the zoning arrangement in Abia Central will be disgraced.
” Why will Ikwuano from the same Ikwuano-Umuahia bloc that will be finishing their tenure in 2023 try to succeed the incumbent? Umunneato and Ikwuano- Umuahia bloc rotate the seat, and nobody should try to trade our chance for personal gains.”
Wachuku warned that any attempt to truncate the prevailing rotation arrangement in the zone could lead to a protest vote against the ruling party.
” Anybody trying to create a situation where there will be an anti-party vote will have himself to blame”, he thundered.
The former National President of the Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists (NASSI) as well as Chairman of the research and planning committee of the Nigeria-China Business Council, promised to create family empowerment not KEKE ( tricycle) empowerment”.
” I know how to create jobs. I create family empowerment. I created Small and Medium Enterprise in Nigeria, trained over 100,000 youths as the pioneer NDE DG”.
He challenged other aspirants for the seat to a debate where all of them would give a scorecard of their achievements in their private lives and positions held in the past.
Wachuku also cautioned delegates not to vote for the wrong candidate because of financial inducement as that would amount to mortgaging their children’s future because of a piece of bread.
VANGUARD
