Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment has connected crude oil theft to the Nigerian unemployment increasing rate.
In a statement gathered from Within Nigeria website, Ngige made this known on Friday in Abuja at the opening of the 8th meeting of the National Employment Council.
Dr. Chris who happened to be the chairman of the council said that oil stealing has made Nigeria become a begging nation for survival.
This danger has obstructed the effort of the Federal Government towards creation of jobs for the country to be full of youthful population statistics.
“I am aware that you people know that we are at a very condemnatory stage in our nation’s life.
We have profit-making problems all over the world, but our own in Nigeria is self-imposed. Our main source of income is oil”, said Dr. Ngige.
“But, in the oil sector, two things are happening. One, Nigeria is not meeting her production quota.
Our OPEC production quota used to be 2.2 million barrels per day. It slipped down to 1.8 million barrels.
“Now, 1.8 million barrels can not even be produced again. We are hanging around 1.1 million barrels per day and we are informed that some groups of people are carting away our crude oil.
“This is a very serious matter because it has made us begin begging. We are now begging,’’ he said.
He added that the nation cannot continue that way because it has obstructed our efforts to create jobs for the country full of youthful population.
