The Director-General of the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, has called on President Bola Tinubu to appoint a technocrat as the new labour minister, following the resignation of Simon Lalong.
Speaking in Lagos, Oyerinde said the association’s position was that the government would do well to appoint somebody that understands the labour issues as head of the ministry.
According to him, there is limited time to learn on the job.
Also, he said as Nigeria begins negotiation for the new national minimum wage, the country needs somebody strong, and technically sound within the context of the labour and industrial relations ecosystem, as well as somebody that understands the context of partyism and social partners.
“The learning curve is less because the person has to hit the ground running. So we hope the president hacks into those requests to get a technical expert. It is less of a bureaucrat or a politician to be a minister of labour. I think it is a technical person who understands both the technical and the political context of that whole ecosystem that can survive in that environment.
“If we start strictly, we have many of them around us, whether in this country or out of the country. Once they are Nigerian, we believe they can make their mark in that ecosystem
“We want to appeal to President Bola Tinubu, that Senator Lalong did his best within the context of the time frame. He came in when there were already issues, so he never really had time to settle in. He came and merged those issues and so many dynamics played out that led to the infraction between the minister and labour. Those dynamics we are not aware of, so we might not be able to make a definitive comment about it,” he said.
