\u201cWe promised jobs but what has happened is that people tried to quantify jobs in terms of white collar jobs for graduates from universities and polytechnics, but they don\u2019t want to look at the blue collar jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAgriculture and Agric value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ngige said a lot of the jobs were created in rice farming.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom rice tilling, harvesting, sending to the paddies, mills, and even where people are making the jute bags, transportation, people are getting jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, that value chain alone from Agric is enormous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The minister also said the government has created, \u201cmillions of jobs from the N-power scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said agencies of government such as the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, have also created jobs through skills acquisition.<\/p>\n
He said under the NDE, the government gives beneficiaries tools to earn a living through being, \u201cplumbers, electricians, cosmetologists, shoemakers, tilers and several other areas.\u201d <\/p>\n
DUBAWA<\/a>, Nigeria\u2019s fact-checking and verification platform, hereby assesses the minister\u2019s comments with a view to coming to a verdict on their authenticity.<\/p>\n THE CLAIMS:<\/strong><\/p>\n CLAIM 1<\/strong>: The minister\u2019s first claim here is that \u201cAgriculture and agriculture value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs.\u201d Mr. Ngige said such jobs were created in agricultural activities like rice farming.<\/p>\n CLAIM 2<\/strong>: Another claim is Mr. Ngige\u2019s statement that the government has created \u201cmillions of jobs from the N-power scheme.\u201d<\/p>\n VERIFICATION OF CLAIMS<\/strong><\/p>\n The three major government agencies referenced by the minister\u2019s claims are the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the National Directorate of Employment and the Social Investment Programmes (specifically N-Power)<\/p>\n CLAIM 1: THE 5-7 MILLION AGRICULTURE JOBS<\/strong><\/p>\n Dubawa [using the PTCIJ reference<\/a>] sent a Freedom of Information request to the ministry of agriculture, requesting data on jobs created by the ministry through the agriculture value chain. The ministry failed to provide any response, several months later.<\/p>\n Also, a letter to the ministry of labour requesting details of the ”five to seven million jobs” was not replied.<\/p>\n While the two relevant ministries failed to provide any data to back up the minister\u2019s claim, the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS), the federal government\u2019s repository of data across all sectors, nevertheless offers reliable data on job creation, that is not in sync with the minister\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n The NBS Quarterly Job Creation Survey is a nationwide survey covering all 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with the objective of tracking the number of jobs being created in the economy within a given period.<\/p>\n Its findings are categorised into three groupings: formal sector, informal sector and public sector jobs.\u00a0 The formal sector data represent employment generated in establishments that employ 10 persons and above, or informal professional services that employ less than 10 persons.<\/p>\n With regards to the informal sector, this represents jobs generated by individuals or businesses employing less than 10 or those businesses operating with little or no structures e.g. those in Agriculture, Light Manufacturing, Trade, etc. The public sector jobs are those created in government ministries, departments, agencies otherwise called the MDAs, such as government Parastatals, academic and research institutions at federal, state and local government levels.<\/p>\n Since the present administration, under President Muhammadu Buhari, was sworn in on May 29, 2015, the historically relevant NBS reading that supports its job creation claim would be the NBS 2015 second-quarter data. This data outlook captured the job creation position from the second quarter of 2015 through the third quarter of 2016. \u00a0Since no Quarterly Job Creation Survey has been published after this date, this remains the only valid official evidence of job creation in the country.<\/p>\n Working through the 16 months captured by the available NBS data, it was revealed that in the second quarter of 2015 after the administration came to power, 141,368 jobs were created. In the third quarter, Q3, 2015, 475,180 jobs were created while in the last quarter, Q4, 2015, 499,521 jobs were created.<\/p>\n In the first quarter of the second year, [Q1, 2016], 79,465 jobs were created while in Q2, 2016, 155,444 jobs were created.<\/p>\n The last data available from the NBS was Q3, 2016 when 187,226 jobs were created.<\/p>\n Thus, the total jobs created in the period under review\u00a0(Q2, 2015 \u2013 Q3, 2016) is 1,538,204. That is, between April 1, 2015 and September 30, 2016, a total of 1.5 million (1,538,204) jobs were created across Nigeria in all sectors (including agriculture), according to NBS data.<\/p>\n This data shows that on the average, 256,367 jobs were created in each quarter between Q2, 2015 and Q3, 2016.<\/p>\n Considering that Mr. Ngige made his statement of creating \u201cmore than 5-7 million jobs,\u201d over 13 months after the last available NBS job data (Q3, 2016 which ended on September 30, 2016), an extrapolation of data offers insight on what official figures for the jobs created between Q4 of 2016 and Q4 of 2017 could be.<\/p>\n At an average of 256,367 jobs created quarterly since Mr. Buhari assumed office, the estimated job creation for the five quarters (Q4, 2016 to Q4, 2017) becomes 1.2 million (1,281,835).<\/p>\n While the 1.2 million jobs is an extrapolation, the possibility that the actual number will be more than that is low as Nigeria\u2019s economy was in recession for most of the period under review. The country only announced it had exited recession after the second quarter of 2017.<\/p>\n This leaves the total number of jobs created between the Q2, 2015 and Q4, 2017 as 2,820,039 (2.8 million jobs), and certainly, they were not all created in the agriculture sector as Mr. Ngige had suggested.<\/p>\n Assuming also that all the 2.8 million jobs were created in the agriculture and agro-allied sector, it would still be a far cry from the \u201cmore than 5-7 million jobs\u201d Mr. Ngige declared.<\/p>\n Therefore, claim 1 by the Labour minister that \u201cAgriculture and agriculture value chain alone have created more than 5-7 million jobs\u201d is therefore false.<\/p>\n CLAIM 2: MILLIONS OF JOBS FROM THE N-POWER SCHEME The N-Power is a component of the Social Investment Programme (SIP) of the Buhari administration. The SIP is a major campaign promise of President Muhammadu Buhari to provide food for school kids, pay cash to poor persons and battle unemployment.<\/p>\n SIP is divided into four: Home Grown School Feeding Programme for public schools; Conditional Cash Transfer to poor persons; N-Power for unemployed graduates; and the Government Enterprises Entrepreneurship Programme.<\/p>\n The N-Power is aimed at engaging unemployed Nigerians with a monthly stipend of N30,000. It started out in December 2016 and attracted hundreds of thousands of applications out of which only 200,000 persons were selected from across the country and currently engaged under the programme.<\/p>\n Even though there was another call for application early 2017, there has been no official statement on whether any of those who applied for the 2017 batch of the programme has been employed.<\/p>\n In terms of number of those engaged,\u00a0a statement by Laolu Akande<\/a>, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in February 2018, stated that \u201c200,000 volunteers were recruited nationwide while another set of 300,000 graduate volunteers have been pre-selected for the next round of the programme.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Jobs-created-by-the-Buhari-Adminstration.png?resize=3300%2C2030\" "\\"\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Jobs-created-by-the-Buhari-Government.png?resize=2550%2C2550\" "\\"\\"")
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