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I’m ready to die over Labour Bill
- Oshiomhole
•NLC meets today
ABIODUN ADELAJA,
Abuja
NIGERIA
Labour Congress (NLC) President, Mr. Adams Oshiomhole said he would rather die
than take instructions from President Olusegun Obasanjo on how the nation’s
labour movement is to be run.
Oshiomhole spoke in Kaduna yesterday even
as NLC’s powerful Central Working Committee (CWC), comprising presidents and
secretaries of the Congress’ 29 affiliate unions, scheduled an emergency meeting
for today at Sheraton Hotel, Lagos, to brainstorm on the vexed Trade Unions Act
(Amendment) Bill and the recent clampdown by the State Security Service (SSS) on
labour leaders.
Speaking during the 16th annual National
Education Conference (NEC) of the National Union of Textile Garment and
Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Oshiomhole said in as much as NLC did
not set agenda for government, the latter cannot define what NLC’s mandate
should be.
He said therefore that NLC will resist all
attempts to cage the body.
He noted that only the NLC affiliates
could define what and what the leadership should fight for or dabble into in
national affairs.
Said he: "No one need to be born if there
is nothing to live for; if the NLC must exist as a tool for government, it
should cease to exist, but if it should exist for one minute only, it must
engage, argue and contest any policy detrimental to the collective will of its
member.
"On this issue, I’m ready to die, let them
murder us, it is better to die in the hands of the enemy than in the hands of
those we are supposed to work together. Democracy does not end in voting once in
four years, but in engaging those voted for, arguing with them, agreeing with
them and disagreeing with them."
Noting that government could not take away
labour vibrancy through obnoxious laws, Mr. Oshiomhole wondered why the present
administration could not benefit from the lesson of history by taking a long
view of the present situation.
"If this government believes we are too
strong, so be it. They say we (NLC) have derailed, that rather than fight for
salary increase, we engage in other things beyond our mandate. Who defines our
mandate as labour movement? If we do not talk on fuel price, we keep our silence
on inflation and turn blind eye to naira devaluation, even if the salary is
increased on hourly basis, what can it buy from the market?
"We do not set agenda for government but
we influence it. "It’s like business organisation registered and incorporated in
Nigeria; no matter how, President Obasanjo can’t control them on how the
organisations are run; its only the shareholders that can complain. In this
regard, President Obasanjo can’t query how NLC is run.
"Government belongs to the people; those
in government are the tenants, the people are the landlord, no tenants override
the landlord’s decision except he wants to be ejected. Our leaders should know
that when they make laws for the exigencies of today, they should remember they
won’t be there tomorrow."
The NLC president also accused President
Obasanjo of facts’ distortion on the creation of the congress which the
government had claimed was made possible through official instrument in 1978.
Speaking in the same vein, General
Secretary of Organisation of Africa Trade Unions (OATU) and pioneer president of
NLC, Alhaji Hassan Sumonu, said the congress was formed without government
input, saying even the name suggested by government then was rejected by the
workers.
He called on the unions to resist stoutly
attempts by government to kill labour as the only vibrant opposition and the
only voice that the workers have.
In his fraternal message, Tabo Shabalala,
General Secretary of South Africa Trade Unions (COSATU) warned the NLC against
being forced into submission as doing so will jeopardise the interest of the
workers not only in Nigeria but in the rest of Africa.
He expressed the solidarity of COSATU to
the NLC in the struggle against its deregistration.
The NLC in a statement in Abuja assured
that the vexed anti-labour bill which it described as vindictive and attempts to
enslave the masses would fail.
The meeting is expected to review various
efforts by the NLC to express its dissent to the bill now before the National
Assembly.
The presidents and general secretaries of
the 29 affiliate unions of the NLC as well as the congress executive and
principal officers are billed to attend the meeting which is expected to evolve
definitive steps to oppose the bill.
Meanwhile, the NLC has accused the SSS of
plots to intimidate its leaders over their stand on the vexed anti-labour bill.
In a statement, the NLC said that the SSS
having failed in its bid to intimidate labour leaders in Abuja through illegal
detentions has shifted focus to Lagos.
The NLC which accused the security
operatives of laying siege on its sub-headquarters in Lagos, however, advised
them to rather busy themselves with protection of the citizenry.
"Having failed to intimidate labour
leaders in Abuja through illegal detentions, the SSS has shifted its focus on
those in Lagos.
"Since Monday, the shadowy security
organisation has kept the NLC Lagos sub-secretariat under surveillance and
demanding that NLC Assistant Secretary, Mr. Denja Yakub must report to its
Shangisha, Lagos office.
"The NLC advises the SSS to stop its act of intimidating
the labour movement into submitting to the government of the day. The NLC
reiterates that the executive bill is vindictive and an attempt to reintroduce
dictatorship in the country and that like previous attempts to enslave
Nigerians," it will," the statement said.
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