Following his fresh
investments in automobile and agriculture, the organized labour in the country
has commended Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President and the Chief Executive of
Dangote Group for promoting investments and creating thousands of direct
and indirect youth employments across the country and in Africa.
The labour said
Dangote’s patriotism remains unparalleled when it comes to investment and that
his investments in many sectors have been a key factor behind Nigeria’s
improving economy.
Vice-President
of the Geneva based global union, the IndustrialALL and the Secretary General
of the National Textile Garment Workers Union, Comrade Issa Aremu who was
speaking on the sideline of the 5th Triennial National Delegates
Conference of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria
(PENGASSAN) in Abuja, where he represented former Edo governor Adams Oshiomhole
as the guest speaker lamented that others who should have invested in the
country are stashing their money abroad and thus denying the nation the much
needed investment.
He maintained
that Nigeria would have been an industrial giant in Africa if the nation could
boast of more Dangotes whose preoccupation would be to invest and create jobs
for the teeming populace.
Aremu, a member
of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
also commended other compatriots who he said joined Dangote "in obedience
to the clarion call of the opening stanza of the national anthem "Arise oh
Compatriots" by rising in defence of national unity in the wake of
discordant and divisive voices by some misguided youths".
Referring to the
on-going construction of the world class Refinery and petrochemicals in Lagos
by Dangote, the labour leader said Nigeria is blessed to have an astute business
man like Dangote who would venture into business terrain where even the
professionals would dare not dabble into.
“Little wonder
other African leaders are courting his friendship so that he could extend his
investments into their countries. I don’t think there is any other Nigerian
with much investment in and outside the country like Dangote. I understand he
has his companies in 15 African countries. We in the labour are proud of him”,
Aremu stated.
Speaking earlier
on the theme of the Conference “Emerging Trends in the Oil and Gas Industry and
its Impacts on Labour Movement in Nigeria.’’, Comrade Aremu pointed out that
following the crash in the global oil prices, diversification was more
than urgent adding that this was what Dangote group with investment in scores
of sectors in Africa had been doing "even at a time it was not fashionable
and even risky to do so."
According to
him, diversification was not the same as replacing extractive crude oil with
another extractive solid mineral but " in beneficiation, industrialization
and value addition along the whole value chains which he insisted "must
start with the oil and gas industry with the revival of
the refineries.
“In spite of the
challenges taking place in this sector, the oil and gas industry matters more
than ever before and there is no way you can talk of diversification without
the oil and gas sector.
“As a matter of
fact, no diversification can take place in agriculture, in solid minerals
without the necessary available resources that are still accruable form the oil
and gas sector. “It is obvious, 40 per cent of the national employment comes
from the sector not only that, 95 per cent of the foreign exchange earning
of Nigeria comes from oil and gas, “16 per cent of our GDP also comes from this
sector, with 37 billion reserved crude oil as well as 183 trillion cubic feet
of gas,’’ he said.
Aremu added
that the country’s gas reserve was three per cent of the entire world gas
reserve. “It is clear that Nigeria is not just oil producing country but
increasingly we are a gas producing country also" he said.
The labour leader admonished the youths in the
country to join the task of nation building "through decent work and not
destructive enterprise of national run down". Youths he said must
"organize" to build not "agonize" to destroy. "Let us quit our problems which include poverty,
unemployment, import dependency and stop serving unhelpful illegal and criminal
quit notices on each other".
The unity of the country, he said,
should be protected by all right thinking Nigerians including the youths who
stand to benefit more from the investments and infrastructure developments in
the country.
Referring to some projects
executed by the Dangote Group and the Aliko Dangote Foundation, as contained in
the group profile held by him, Aremu described Dangote as a detribalized
Nigerian who should be encouraged to invest more in the country.
Said he: see, the man has touched
people’s life in all part of the country, if he is not donating relief
materials to flood victims in the East, he would donating materials to the
victims of insurgency in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
“Ït is on record that he is single
handedly responsible for the on-going construction of N7 billion hospital at
the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital in Kano, N600 million Business School
in Bayero University Kano, provision of boreholes for many communities in the
North.
“He is into rice farming in five
states in the North through which thousands of people will be gainfully
employed. Yet works are going on in his 650 barrels per day refinery and
petrochemical project in Lagos. The man deserved to be hailed rather being
vilified”, the labour leader fumed.
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