By Iyiola Olalere
The Tinubu Media Volunteers (TMV) has admonished the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to tread with caution in condemning the just-released report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on a decline in the unemployment rate from 5.3% in the first quarter of 2024 to 4.3% in the second quarter
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Chukwudi Enekwechi, and Secretary Shadrach Sunday, the group argued that the labour movement could not choose to believe NBS data when it favours it.
TMV said: “We are indeed worried that the NLC will choose at any time to believe which NBS report suits them and at other times disagrees with others.
“Let us remind the NLC that the NBS has been using the model which even the International Labour Organization (ILO), to which NLC is an affiliate, has accepted.
“And if the NLC insists on doubting the NBS reports, the implication is that it is not a credible organization. We are very sure that NBS reports are independent and immune from any form of manipulation by the federal government, its agencies, or any external body except the one that exists in the imagination of the NLC.
“We decry a situation where the labour movement will in one breath accept NBS report when unemployment increases, but in one another, breath has the temerity to doubt a report on a decline in unemployment. This is the height of hypocrisy!
“We therefore advise NLC as a labour union to be more informed and be contemporaneous in its analysis of NBS reports. They should eschew parochialism and political bitterness in their analysis.
“For the umpteenth time, we want the NLC to know that NBS is using global best practices, which is also ILO’s model for employment data analysis across the world.”
TMV added that the same model is also applicable in other countries, including Europe and Asia, and wondered why Nigeria should be an exception because the outcome does not align with NLC’s fancy.
