Lagos – The Director of Social Communications, Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, Msgr. Gabriel Osu, has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to look into and address the plight of Nigerian workers.
Osu, in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Saturday, said that the minimum wage of Nigerian workers was grossly in adequate.
“Except the take home pay of the average worker is able to provide the basic necessities of life, then the fight against corruption will remain an illusion,” Osu said.
Osu said the 2016 May Day should be a time to examine the importance of work or labour to our physical and spiritual wellbeing.
“Labour should be valued as the source of unequalled prosperity, and as a characteristic of a strong and determined people.
“It is a thing of joy for a man to wake up in the morning and go to work. Conversely, it is not dignifying for a man to be jobless.
“When a man is without job, he is restless and uncomfortable. It is expectedly so because when one fails to work, poverty would creep in,” he said.
Osu also decried the rate of unemployment in the country, and suggested that something drastic should be done because “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop’’.
He expressed regrets that many youths were idling away because there was no work for them to do.
“Many of them now resort to engaging in manual labour to keep body and soul together.
“Those who are too proud to bend down, unfortunately, take to robbery and kidnapping in order to lay their hands on quick money.
“Part of man’s purpose on earth is to be productive. To be productive he needs to work.
“Scientists have since proven that the day a man stops to be productive, he begins to die slowly,” he said.
Osu said that for the country to be progressive, government should show more genuine commitment toward providing gainful opportunities for the unemployed.
He warned that “as long as we pay lip service to youth employment, we will never find peace as a nation”. (NAN)