Akwa Ibom's Governor Emmanuel declines to approve bill forcing companies to employ local people

AKWA Ibom State's Governor Udom Emmanuel will not be assenting to a bill passed by the state house of assembly making it compulsory for companies hire indigenes and local people because the government sees such a law as unenforceable.

In a desperate bid to boost local employment, in June last year, the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly passed a bill, stating that companies with at least 20 employees must hire at least 10% of their senior workers and 70% of junior workers from among the indigenes of the state. If enacted, the bill, which empowers the state government to carry out personnel audits in private firms, prescribed fines for non-compliance.

However, it now appears that Governor Emmanuel, may have rejected a bill as Uwemedimo Nwoko, the state attorney general said the law, if passed, would be unenforceable. He added: “If it were passed since last year, I may have advised the governor on it as the provisions of the bill would be against the constitution of Nigeria because what it is going to create is that it is going to discriminate against Nigerians on grounds of where they come from.

“If a company wants to advertise a job opportunity it would now be saying don’t apply for it except you are from Akwa Ibom. Once you engineer any discriminatory policy against any other Nigerian, no matter where he comes from, it becomes a head-on collision with the constitution and it is dead on arrival, so the Akwa Ibom House of Assembly cannot enact a law that would create discrimination against Nigerians."

According to the proposed law, compliance its provisions would be a major criteria for contract awarding and the issuance of license and permits by the state government. Akwa Ibom is among the states with the highest unemployment rates in the country, despite being one of Nigeria’s richest states because of its oil wealth.

Governor Emmanuel, who has just won re-election for a second term, has sought to industrialise the state with the hope of providing business and job opportunities for the growing population. Onofiok Luke, the speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, had said the job market in the state must be regulated to accommodate the youth.