By Adeola Ogunlade
The Chief Executive Officer of Hybrid group, Dapo Omolade, has called on the federal and state governments to invest in health and safety commissions across the country as the sector can employ 1 million youths in 2 years.
Omolade said this recently during the organisation’s maiden Alumni Hangout and Networking event.
According to him, the Nigeria safety commission has been majorly dominated by foreign expatriates. This is because the government has reneged on the regulatory aspect of health and safety.
He added that by engaging local professionals in the duty of safety practices, the government can generate one million jobs in 2 years.
Omolade said “safety in Nigeria today is done by expatriates because Nigerians are not competent in the Safety sector.
He noted that this is where we come in as a health and safety training company to make Nigerian competence to be able to take the job.
“If you are not competent, you cannot manage safety, so when they bring in experts, it is because there are no Nigerians that can do the job”.
“So, we have big opportunities for employment in Nigeria if the government decides to invest and set up a safety commission, ” he said.
He commended the Lagos State government’s effort at setting examples for other states in setting up and passing laws concerning safety compliance.
“The government has done the right thing by passing laws for health and safety to be done in Nigeria. We are the people that know how to do it, we will go out and implement what they have done.”
“We want more from the government because when the State do not provide the right framework, it makes it difficult for us for is to go all the way.
“We need to lay the right structure so that experts in the Safety sector will be given the power and enablement to make Nigeria a great safe place”, he said.
Former Director-General of the Lagos State Safety Commission (LSSC), Dominga Omolara Odebunmi restated that the principle around providing occupational safety is to make sure that your work environment is safe enough for you to work.
“Firms should realize that they need people to work with people. You can’t replace human beings entirely with robots. Even with robots, someone will engineer them, so you still need people. Technology will help you to reduce the form of incidence that can happen”, Odebunmi said.
Also, speaking at the event, Accord Presidential Candidate, -Chris Imumolen, said that we live in a country where the government by itself does not value health and safety. We have to put professionals in the Health and Safety Department in the Ministry of Labour and Productivity.
“We should stop appointing people through political lines. We should not give people positions in the key sector as political rewards. They have to be professionals”, he said.
“Our areas of engagement to achieve these include medical and food outreaches, community impact projects, for instance, we hold outreaches every month in sub-urban and rural communities.