Opposition Mounts Against Obasanjo's Move To Weaken Labour
BY MUYIWA ADEYEMI (LAGOS) AND MATHIAS OKWE (ABUJA)
ALTHOUGH the executive bill by President Olusegun Obasanjo aimed at restructuring the labour movement in Nigeria is yet to get through even the first reading, it has continued to attract criticisms from human rights organisations.
To the Human Rights Monitor (HRM), the bill, which seeks to amend the Trade Union Act of 1976, is an attempt to outlaw the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC.
Also, the Progressive Action Congress (PAC) has a word on the matter. The National Assembly, it says, should not allow itself to be used as a tool to weaken a democratic institution like the NLC.
The party warned that if the National Assembly approved the bill, 'it would amount to abandoning their social contract with Nigerians", adding that weakening of labour may engineer coup plotters who would see no more opposition to them."
In a statement, the National Chairman of PAC, Chief A. C Nwodo, said: "Those who call the 29 opposition political parties 'enemies of the state,' and the NLC as a threat to democracy, should realise that dictatorship has become archaic and might eventually backfire."
The HRM in a statement by its Executive Director, Mr. Festus Okoye yesterday described the move as "dictatorial and dangerously provocative."
"That it came from President Obasanjo is evidence of attempt by him to seek a revenge against the people whose will opposes his failure to comprehend the meaning of democracy and his disdain for the sovereignty of the people," Okoye added.
The statement reads in part: "President Obasanjo's shameless attempt to destroy the NLC and hijack the labour movement by replacing it with a puppet system of loyal stooges stands as a provocation to all the people of this country. His attempt to justify such actions in the name of the internationally accepted values and principles of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is entirely reprehensible.
"In Nigeria, the world's sixth largest oil producing country, if the people get ever poorer while fuel prices rise externally, none of the promised dividends of democracy or oil production will emerge. Obasanjo risks the destruction of the fragile democracy for which we have all sacrificed so much.
"As stakeholders in the Nigerian project, we warn against the dire consequences of the Federal Government's current attempt and insistence on dividing and instituting a subservient regime in the labour movement.
"Driving all voices of dissent underground will not polish the image of the government or give a human face to its current directionless and inhuman economic and political policies. Labour is not the enemy of the government, the albatross of the government is its own policies and the deficient calibre and credibility of officials running its agencies and institutions."
The group then called on Nigerians to employ "all peaceful and legal means to express their opposition to the president's bill."
Meanwhile, the NLC President Adams Oshiomhole has declared that no bill would change the trust and unity which Nigerian workers have built over the years.
Oshiohmole was speaking in Lagos on Thursday at the inaugural Delegates Conference of the Congress of Free Trade Unions (CFTU).
"It is worth repeating that the legitimacy of the NLC does not derive from any law, but derives from the wishes and aspirations of Nigerian workers" . Oshiomhole was represented by Mr. Salihu Lukman, acting General Secretary .
President Obasanjo on June 8 sent a bill to the National Assembly to amend the Trade Unions Act in order to "promote the democratisation of Labour and further strengthen it."
He added that it would be in compliance with ILO's requirements concerning democratisation in the organisation of labour unions and centres, and consolidate the value of accountability and participation.
Oshiomhole pointed out that the right to form and join unions was guaranteed by the country's constitution and could not be repudiated.
"We in the NLC remain unshaken in our belief that constitutionalism will triumph," he said.
