• Disregard the call –Labour minister
Ahead of the 2015 general elections, organized labour have been told to get practically involved in partisan politics and take advantage of their population in the country to wrest democratic power from the ruling elite.
Speaking at the ongoing 9th triennial national delegates conference of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Abuja, yesterday, Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, told labour unions in the country to shake off their non-partisanship toga and take sides with progressive forces of change and wrest power from political elite to effect meaningful transformation for the benefit of all.
But in apparent response to Oshiomhole’s call for political revolution by workers, the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Chief Emeka Wogu, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan, urged workers to disregard the call, saying such revolutionary action is not supported by any laws of the country recent or extant.
The former president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) noted that against the background of crushing poverty among ordinary Nigerians while political leaders continued to enrich themselves at the expense of the masses, the only hope for transformation was for workers to adopt the example of Brazil where union leaders became the vanguard of change.
According to Oshiomhole, the revolutionary president of Brazil, Lula did not agonise in the face of challenges facing the masses “Lula, the Brazilian revolutionary president, recognized that those who are in power cannot be persuaded to govern according to the wishes of the common man.
They keep power and allocate resources in a way that favour their class. To wrest power from them is about struggle. “Lula taught the Brazilian workers the need for struggle and provided leadership for that struggle.
If the union leaders want to make a difference, they should tell Nigerians how they plan to participate in leading Nigerian workers to acquire power and transform the country,” Oshiomhole stated.
Continuing, the Edo State governor said: “I want organized labour to realize that the days are gone when employees are not partisan staff because national economy is structured on the basis of partisan connotation.
And if workers don’t take risk, nothing is going to change.” He therefore urged organized labour made up of NLC and TUC and their thousands of affiliates to shake-off the toga of non-partisanship as the 2015 elections approach, and mobilize workers in the manner Brazilian president mobilized for change.
He expressed serious concern that political elite had held on to available resources and allocated them in such a way that there had been a huge gap between electioneering promises and economic reality of average Nigerians whose standard of living had continued to decline hopelessly.
Stressing that six months into the year, the nation’s oil earnings had exceeded government’s projection but regretted that it had not translated into corresponding improvement in the living standard of the citizens, pointing out that economic improvement went beyond official statistics.
However, he commended executive of TUC for transforming the labour centre and making it a formidable ally of NLC beyond the imagination of government that sought to hijack it at critical period of the nation’s history.
On the crisis threatening credibility of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Oshiomhole reiterated how Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State emerged as winner of the controversial NGF election, and insisted that in a crisis such as the one the forum was enmeshed, organized labour must not seat on the fence but rather speak up against perceived injustice and take sides with justice, equity and fairness.
Culled from The Sun newspaper
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