LAST week President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the boards of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS) alongside that of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) for effective administration after the expiration of the tenure of the previous boards. Comrade Issa Aremu gives an insight into the workings of the boards and social benefits for the country
Excerpts:
Imports Of The Inaugurated Boards
A: Well, it’s quite remarkable because it shows that it’s part of the challenges. The administration is keeping into the spirit of corporate and also corporate governance. Because when the tenure of the Board expires, you need to reconstitute and it’s good as President Mohammadu Buhari reconstituted the Board of Miners.
Then secondly is the remarkable profile of the members of the Board. In the case of Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour Studies (MINILS), you have all the institutions were represented there. We have the Organized Labour. Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA), you have the Federal Ministry of Labour, you have the Army, you have the Police and you have the NUC which has even sent the former President of ASUU.
It takes President Buhari commitment and courage to appoint former President of ASUU who is also a striking member of ASUU to be on the Board of MINILS. I hope his membership will be able to make us address all the labour issues that have been leading to avoidable protractors strikes in the case of universities.
So what I’m saying is that the President has done his own through the Honourable Minister of Labour who is also very committed and who has made this occasion possible. Now the challenge is for the Board members to also deliver in terms of the services and for the two agencies, there are two ways to judge our performance.
Job Creation And Capacity Building
In the case of MDAs is to continue the good job of creating jobs and in the case of MINILS is to continue building capacity for the workers, employers, government officials, so that we promote industrial harmony and peace and minimize all the affordable strikes as stoppages are taking place and some other malpractices on the part of employers of labour.
But this energy and what we have seen today, we have to give it to the Honourable Minister of Labour, Festus Keyamo, and as I’ve disclosed over the achievement we’ve recorded now in the MINILS within these ten months is due to his inspiration and the support. He has visited the MINILS twice and that’s unprecedented. No Minister has done that since the existence of the institution over the last decades.
Not only that, he came there to declare workshops open. He came there to declare projects open, hostels, skill acquisition centers. I think I want other Ministers to emulate the capacity to serve. It also shows that comrades or activists, when they are given opportunity, they could deliver just like the way they do in civil society, they could do very well in the state level. Festus Keyamo is a successful non-state actor as well as successful state actor.
Rules Of Engagement And Motivations
The rules of engagement is that we must have periodic quarterly meetings. The Ministers also spell it out that they are not the ones to run the MDAs day-to-day activity. That’s the job of the Director Generals. For them, they are to set the policy guidelines, they have to supervise the activities and they also have the direct assess especially the Chairmen to the Honourable Minister. So they are to provide the general framework for the two institutions work and to perform very well in line with the vision of obtaining their enabling laws as well as the vision of the President.
