“African governments must put sustainable security measures if the continent must attract investment, protect the existing investments and create sustainable Decent jobs,” Labour leader, Issa Aremu, has said.
The Labour leader made the call at the weekend during the 2020 Africa industrialization Day (AID) commemoration activity and Webinars organized by Industriall Global Union coordinated in Lagos and Johannesburg in South Africa.
Aremu noted that the increasing spate of insecurity on the continent caused by insurgencies, banditry and avoidable wars undermine investment and industrialization on the continent, citing the case of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the recent conflict in Ethiopia with Tigri region.
According to him, the activities of bandits all over the country are undermining farming cultivation, Agro-allied and industrial expansion.
Aremu further explained that insecurity will further make Nigerian industries uncompetitive with negative impacts on employment, while saying that there can be no industrialization without electrification.
He therefore urged all African governments to massively invest in energy mix of hydro, solar and nuclear to drive Industrialization.
Said he; “there is a nexus between industry and sustainable jobs. He said the underlining condition for the recent #ENDSARS protests and its violent fall out was “massive unacceptable” unemployment and underemployment .
“Sustainable mass jobs can only come from industry and manufacturing adding that Decent jobs , should not be an act of charity but as a necessary condition to promote productivity, transform Nigeria and Africa from underdevelopment, from dependence to sustainable development.”
While speaking, Aremu advised that African leaders must copy China’s industrialization drive and diversification which within 20 years moved over 250 million people out of poverty through manufacturing and industrialization.
