Chukwu David 
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Muhammadu Dingyadi, on Monday, promised that the Ministry was taking pragmatic steps to tackle unemployment in the country.
Dungyadi made the promise when he appeared to defend the Ministry’s 2025 Appropriation bill before the Senate Committee on Employment, Labour and Productivity, which was chaired by Senator Diket Plang (APC-Plateau).
He noted that he was barely three months old in office, saying that “we have each and every hour been fighting unemployment in the ministry because that is our key assignment.
“That is the key responsibility that the Minister of Labour and Employment is leading with. All the skill development programmes that this ministry is doing, we are doing it to fight unemployment.
“This is our major responsibility. And as I said, we are on top of the situation to ensure that we fight unemployment to finish”.
When asked about unemployment statistics, Dingyadi said that he would not want to give figures that he wasn’t sure of, stating that “we don’t know that this question was going to be answered.
“By way of presenting figures, I don’t want to go into giving you figures that I’m not very sure of. But I want to assure you that we have these figures. I didn’t come with them. And we have to coordinate them because all our parastatals and agencies are working on this issue of fighting unemployment.
“So we’ll coordinate and provide our committee with these figures. I know members of this committee are very serious and very intelligent. When we bring these figures, you will know whether what we are telling you is correct or not.
So please give us a little time. We will get these figures ready for you and we will make them public if you want us to do so,” he said. I’m sure the figures are there. It’s only that we didn’t come with them because we didn’t know that this question is going to be answered”.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Diket Plang, appreciated President Bola Tinubu’s commitment l to the welfare, well-being and happiness of all Nigerian workers, both in the public and the private sectors.
He also acknowledged the Ministry’s commitment to ensuring decent work and promoting employment opportunities.
“The recent implementation of the new national minimum wage, which took effect on April 1, 2024, is a testament to this commitment.
“Our budget allocation which is slightly reviewed upward as against the 2024 Budget Act, will support the Ministry’s efforts to ensure and enforce that workers receive fair compensation”.
