Insecurity worsens, threatens human capital devt in Nigeria – Aremu

Organised labour has decried the worsening insecurity in the country, noting that it is depleting the country’s limited human capital through what it called “avoidable killings of innocent workers, journalists, farmers and herders”.

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) NEC member and General Secretary Textile Workers Union, Comrade Issa Aremu, raised this alarm in Zaria on Tuesday while paying condolence visit to the family of Precious Owolabi a youth corper  with the Channels Television who died following a gunshot wound he sustained at the scene of the  clash between the police and protesting members of Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) last week Monday in Abuja.

The labour leader observed that “insecurity related problems have wider negative impact for human capital development if unchecked. Though significant progress has been made to train human resources in a number of educational institutions, Nigeria is depleting it’s skilled hands through violent conflicts”.

“It is regrettable that an enthusiastic energetic intern journalist like Precious Owolabi, a youth corper, could be casually wasted in an avoidable conflict between the police and members of Shi’ite Movement. It took almost 15 years and enormous resources to train a university graduate.”

Comrade Aremu, who is also a Member of National Institute (MNI), said, “the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) has lost as many as 1,000 teachers to incessant killings and abduction of school officials by armed bandits in Zamfara state and other parts of the Northeast.

“For a country in which millions of children are out of schools, serial murder of trained ones like teachers and journalists like Precious Owolabi further depletes the country’s critical human capital,” he said.

He lamented that insecurity at work has been daily woes of the majority of Nigerian workers calling on security forces and employers to protect workers in the areas of conflicts including journalists.

According to him, “notwithstanding the national hysteria about rampant kidnappings, robberies, rural banditry and terror attacks, the mass insecurity victims are the poor defenceless working people. In most cases, mass victims are poor working people in the farms, traders in towns and teachers in schools, and now working journalists like Precious.

“Security must be inclusive for all. There should be a recognition of the class character of violent conflicts. Most victims are the poor who are treated with indifference compared to the alarm the insecurity of the rich and politically protected generate in the media.”

Comrade Aremu prayed that God to grant the parents of the deceased corper journalist the fortitude to bear the grief of the death of Precious Owolabi.

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