The Conference of
Nigerian Political
Parties (CNPP), yesterday raised alarm that President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Trade Unions Act amendment Bill was a grand ploy to neutralise opposition groups, alleging that after breaking the labour movement, the president will come after opposition parties and professional groups.
Similarly, the Chief Justice of the federation, Justice Muhammad Lawal Uwais, yesterday warned against dictatorship in the country.
This is coming as a group of members of the House of Representatives plan to receive the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), which is expected to stage a rally at the National Assembly today against the labour Bill.
Rising from a one-day emergency meeting to deliberate on national issues, CNPP said the president, having failed in his attempt to break the opposition, has now turned against organised labour, with the ultimate intent of coming back to fight the political parties and other groups.
The group’s chairman, Alhaji Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa, told Daily Trust in Abuja shortly after the meeting, that should the president have his way on the labour Bill, the nation’s descent into a one-party state would accelerate.
“When he tried to deregister opposition parties, he came up against great opposition. He is now saying okay, we will deal with that later. But let’s deal with another body that’s even more orga-nised than the political parties – that’s the NLC.
“After the NLC, he will deal with the political parties, professional groups, partic-ularly the NBA, because they have serious role to play within the judiciary, and he doesn’t like it, being a dictator. And he will deal with all others until he prevails as oga pata-pata, life president of Nigeria,” Musa said.
Taking a swipe at Obas-anjo for pretending to be a democrat, Musa said the president lacked moral justi-fication to attempt “democratising” the NLC, having rigged himself back to power.
The group therefore decided to back labour in its strive to save the nation from the brink of tyranny, he said.
Musa also urged the National Assembly to listen to popular antagonism to the Bill, saying Nigerians should give the lawmakers the benefit of doubt.
Some of the legislators, who are expected to decide on the Bill today, have since expressed strong opposition to the legislation and decided to support the labour’s protest.
Leader of a group of 40 members of the House, Dr. Haruna Yerima, said yest-erday that they have mou-nted high lobby in the lower chamber to persuade their colleagues to vote against the Bill when it comes up for a second reading.
Yerima, who was spea-king to Daily Trust in Abuja by telephone, noted that “The group of like-minded” legislators was appalled by the ulterior motives in the Bill, and have decided to oppose it, adding that the 40 legislators would today receive the protesting workers as a sign of solidarity.
He said also that his group was suspecting a ploy to stampede the House into passing the Bill, warning that this would meet a brick wall.
“As I am talking to you now, we have not been given copies of the Bill. I have not seen the Bill. So I think there is a ploy to manipulate the House. But we have already warned the leadership to stop manipulating things in the House,” he said.
Yerima said the integrity of the National Assembly was at stake and expressed dismay that the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), was in inertia, urging the lawmakers to protect the nation’s democracy by throwing out the labour Bill.
Speaking in the same vein at the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), annual gen-eral delegate’s confe-rence in Abuja, Justice Uwais said that concentration of powers in an individual is the very definition of dictatorship with its nature as arbitrary, capricious or despotic.
He said that going by the provisions of the 1999 constitution of 36 states and the FCT, there was provisions for the separation of powers by the three arms of government created by the constitution.
Justice Uwais who was represented at the occasion by Justice Salihu Alfa Belgore, said that “too often, we have had conflicts between the federation and the states and between states.
He said, “the executive function of government which involves the main-tenance of peace and order, the security of state, the provision of social welfare has an inherent tendency towards arbitrariness.
“A constitutional government is conducted according to pre-determined rules. It is a government of laws but not of the will or according to the whims and caprices of the ruler.”
Justice Uwais noted that the function of law making should be separated from that of the executives, saying that different agencies with personnel and procedure should performed different functions.
“By separating the functions of the executive from that of law making, so that every executive action which affects an individual must have the authority of some law and also by prescribing a different procedure for law making, so that the arbitrary action of the executive can be effectively checked.”
He added, “In my view, the principle of separation of powers has provided for each traditional arm of the government, unique roles to perform as a means of checks and balance of power, to faci-litate good governance to thrive. This is a recipe for the survival of the Nigerian nat-ion.”
But President Olusegun Obasanjo at the occasion castigated the NBA for turning itself into a political opposition.
He said that the chall-enges of social transform-ation and economic reforms in Nigeria demands a legal profession that is proactive in using law as an instrument for meeting the needs of the society.
He said, “regrettably however, the legal profe-ssion, I am afraid, will be unable to perform this role for national survival if the NBA, chooses to deliberately set itself up as a political oppo-sition rather than a partner in the survival project.”
He noted, “NBA is not a trade union, I am therefore surprised that I am always made to feel wrong in my expectations of a dispassionately professional appraisal by the NBA of issues in disp-ute between NLC and government.
“I however nurse the unflinching hope that the NBA will soon rediscover itself to resume its proper rol-e as a respectable professional body deserving of recognition and respect in its views, court and criticisms,” he added.
Also, the NLC president, Adams Oshiomhole, thanked the outgoing executive for the unflinching support given to labour in the moment of trial.
He said that Nigeria was too large to be managed by those not accountable to the people saying that democracy will not be defined by them but by us because “those who have become president were products of our collective decision.”
He said, “We have wasted yesterday, I am not sure we are doing the right thing today but collectively, we can fight for the future. By the time of your next election, the president might have outlawed the NLC if he has the backing of the National Assembly. I therefore thank you all.”
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