Organised Labour Hail Dangote on Investment Drive, Employment
Following his fresh investments in automobile and agriculture, the organised labour in the country has commended President and the Chief Executive of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, 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 Genevabased global union, the IndustrialALL and the Secretary General of the National Textile Garment Workers Union, Comrade Issa Aremu said this on the side line of the 5 th Triennial National Delegates Conference of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria( PEN GAS SAN) in Abuja, where here presented former E do governor Adams Os hi om hole as the guest speaker.
Aremu 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 clarioncall of the opening stanza of the national anthem ‘Arise oh Com patriots’ 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 Refinery and petrochemicals in Lagos by Dangote, the labour leader said Nigeria was blessed to have an astute business man like Dan go te who would venture into the 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 such 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’, he 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, industrial is at ion 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.