President's aide says too much pressure on FG to provide jobs

While speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, the president's spokerperson said despite the federal government's best efforts to create jobs in the country, it has to rely on the private sector to help out.

According to him, the government is helping the private sector to create jobs by creating an enabling environment for businesses to thrive for jobs to be created.

He also said that the government is trying to create the environment to encourage Nigerians to seek 'self-actualisation' in place of depending on the government to create jobs.

He said, "I think that by and large, what the government has been trying to do is to expand the space for the private individual to ease the environment for doing business in this country so that people will seek self-actualisation.

"There's too much pressure on the government to provide jobs which cannot be provided and cannot be paid for. Even the communist system has failed to provide jobs for every citizen in the country.

"We're not saying we're not providing jobs, but on the scale that we're confronted with, it's only the private sector that can help. It is the job of the government to help create the enabling environment for businesses to thrive for jobs to be created.

"Government within its own domain can create jobs, has been creating jobs; but, my point is that the government is in no position to create jobs for 180 million people in this country."

According to a report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in December 2017, an estimated eight million Nigerians lost their jobs between January 2016 and September 30, 2017.