Politicians should have other jobs apart from politics – Tonye Princewill

By Christiana Ekpa

An All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain in Rivers State, Prince Tonye Princewill, has said that Nigerians should not allow jobless politicians to occupy political offices.
According to him, a politician should have daytime jobs and should be professional in a particular field so he is alway able to bring something to the table.
“We shouldn’t have politicians who don’t have daytime jobs. We should have politicians who are bringing something to the table. Politicians with wealth of experience in the real world,” the ex APC governorship aspirant in Rivers said.
“They don’t necessarily have to be businessmen; they can be professionals of any sort. But it is very good when you bring that experience to the political space. A lot of people go from school to politics and I don’t think that is ideal. Everyone has their own unique perspective and this is mine.
“As a businessman, I have learnt how to use money well and how to develop opportunities, and like a CEO of a major multi-international in Nigeria told me, the politicians don’t understand the language of business, so they can’t create the environment for us to strive.
“And I think that’s very important because the largest employer of labour should the Small-Medium Scale Enterprise.
“So if the largest employer of labour is the Small-Medium Scale Enterprise, it means the politicians should be helping the Small-Medium Scale Enterprise and if they don’t understand the Small-Medium Scale Enterprise like the multiple taxations, cheap and affordable capital and skills development for staff, then there is a problem.
“If they don’t understand those issues there’s no way they can create an environment for businesses to strive and of course, it means that the unemployment issues we have in Nigeria will continue to rise just to say that Nigeria by 2050 would probably be the third-largest country in the world, and if we don’t sort out the employment issues of this generation then we have a major problem ahead of us”, he said.