Festus Keyamo, the state minister for labor, has asserted that President Muhammadu Buhari cannot be held responsible for the large percentage of Nigerian children who are not enrolled in school.
He stated that the creation of an environment that fosters job creation is not only the government’s responsibility but a collective obligation.
On Thursday, Keyamo, who serves as the spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, made the statement while appealing to Nigerians on Arise TV.
He contends that the state governments, not the federal government, are responsible for overseeing primary and secondary school education, and as a result, the federal government cannot be held accountable for the high number of children who are not in primary or secondary school.
He said, “primary and secondary school is not within the purview of the federal government. Let us get that clear. So when you roll out that statistics you’re talking about the PDP government at the state levels, you’re talking about the APGA government in Anambra, you’re talking about the APC government in different states too.
“So it is not the burden of the federal government that children are out of school at the primary school level, and secondary school level. That is a state responsibility.
“We only intervene sometimes in terms of funding and some kind of support we give to the state government. So the state government should take responsibility for this, and they should encourage students at those levels to go to school.
“While acknowledging that the unemployment rate is high minister said ” go and look at the statistics from the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics and look at the state by state level of unemployment; it’s not that of the federal government alone.
“Some of the opposition party states has the highest number of unemployed persons. It is the responsibility of state and local government to employ people, not the responsibility of the federal government alone.
“What the federal government does is to provide the enabling environment and policies that can make people get employment”.
