The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has been dragged badly on Twitter, for distributing wheelbarrows and cutlasses to beneficiaries of a federal government scheme in his home state of Delta--with plenty of fanfare to go with it.
Keyamo is overseeing the federal government's Special Public Works Programme which seeks to recruit a total of 774,000 Nigerians across the country.
Beneficiaries of the programme, which will run for three months, will be paid N20,000 per month.
They will be expected to perform tasks in roads rehabilitation, social housing construction, urban and rural sanitation, desilting of clogged drainage channels and other public works services.
On January 10, 2021, Keyamo announced that he had visited his home state of Delta to kickstart the programme.
"As part of my activities last week, I travelled to Delta State to launch the Special Public Works Programme (774,000) jobs in my own Local Government Area (Uvwie LGA)," he tweeted.
It is the image of a federal minister and a renowned lawyer handing out manual tools to his compatriots in the age of the mower, sprinkler and mechanized labour, and making a song and dance out of it all, that has riled a section of young Nigerians on Twitter.
"Festus Keyamo went to use cutlass and wheelbarrow as empowerment tools and presidential aide tweeted “there is beauty in simplicity”. This Nigeria can’t be a real place," wrote @DlfeoluwaDavid.
More reactions below:
You won't see them launching CBN and FIRS jobs but nah all this poverty sticken jobs they will be launching up and down.
— #OgbeniAsiwaju (@AsiwajuOladimej) January 10, 2021
Ko ni ye gbogbo yin... pic.twitter.com/wABZ8vw7R2
Nobody:
— PODCAST GURL (@martyben) January 11, 2021
Festus keyamo...let's empower the youths with cutlass...Shey na ment..... pic.twitter.com/c9AXbJdm1K
"Warri no dey carry last" but Festus keyamo went all the way to Abuja and returned to Delta with wheel barrows and cutlasses as employment scheme? in 2021? Lmaoooo
— DaniellaDavis (@DiDiPreedy) January 11, 2021
Festus Keyamo travelled to Delta State to launch the special public works programme with cutlass & wheelbarrow, how can you be sharing cutlass and wheelbarrow as empowerment programme in 2021 and also post it like an achievement for FG, when we are no more in primitive age.
— Uncle Ajala (@UNCLE_AJALA) January 11, 2021
People with sense and Abnormal people Festus Keyamo and his grass cutting team pic.twitter.com/z6CTDTRWbv
— Soro soke (@Alaje80840168) January 11, 2021
Festus Keyamo went to use cutlass and wheelbarrow as empowerment tools and presidential aide tweeted “there is beauty in simplicity”. This Nigeria can’t be a real place
— uncle Ife (@DIfeoluwadavid) January 11, 2021
However, the minister explained that he is being bullied on social media by persons who do not understand what the scheme entails and the rationale behind it all.
"The 774,000 jobs is basically for our everyday labourers to carry out community services. It would not be financially prudent if govt were to spend billions for expensive equipment for 3-month jobs, then spend millions again training our labourers on how to use these equipment," he wrote.
The 774,000 jobs is basically for our everyday labourers to carry out community services. It would not be financially prudent if Govt were to spend billions for expensive equipments for 3-month jobs, then spend millions again training our labourers on how to use these equipments
— Festus Keyamo, SAN (@fkeyamo) January 11, 2021
Some N52 billion has been budgeted for the exercise.
The Buhari-led federal government has touted the project as one more way of reducing Nigeria's astronomical jobless figures.
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