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 Daily
Independent Online.
* Wednesday, June 30, 2004.
The move to decapitate
the NLC
The frequent
resistance to some of the Federal Government’s economic policies,
especially those regarding the pump prices of petroleum products by the
Adams Oshiomhole-led Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has aroused
inauspicious and negative reactions from the Federal Government. Beyond
the accusation that the NLC is a threat to democracy, the Federal
Government has commenced measures aimed at destabilising and rendering it
ineffective. To be sure, it is believed that the Federal Government has
presented to the National Assembly, a bill for the decentralisation of
the NLC.
Beside the uncanny irony that President
Olusegun Obasanjo is striving to dismantle a credible edifice that he
built and inaugurated on 28 February 1978, the attempt to reverse the
monumental gains of the NLC is to
our mind in bad faith and mischievous. To our mind, the move to
strike at the foundations of the NLC is itself one of the gravest dangers
to democracy in Nigeria.
No doubt, the NLC has grown
in strength and political relevance way out of the contemplation of the
government. Be that as it may, it is our belief that the role that the
NLC has been playing since the commencement of this republic is not only
complementary to the democratic institutions of the State but also vital.
At a stage of our democratic evolution, bodies like the NLC are required
to be attentive and sensitive to policies that have a direct bearing on
the socio-economic life of the citizenry. What the NLC has been doing is
to streamline and aggregate the feelings of the citizenry on particular
policies. Perceiving them as offensive weapons in the hands of
disgruntled groups has led to such unfortunate and antagonistic responses
as that of the Federal Government.
It is understandable for the government to
feel jittery over the capability of the NLC to constantly checkmate its
policies but then the NLC could never have been so successful if it was
not doing the bidding of the people. The impressive ability of the NLC to
garner support and mobilise the citizenry against the seeming unpatriotic
and queer economic policies of the government should be viewed against
our political context. There is a disconnect between the elective
political and constitutional institutions. The people are invariably left
with no option but to look for a body to manage the convergence of forces
against the perceived or real injustices of the government and the
political elite.
The NLC has consequently been foisted with a
responsibility that it cannot shirk. If the people divert their support
from the government to the NLC, then it must be pointed out that they do
not wish to support those who seem bent on scuttling Nigeria’s fledging
democracy.
We therefore wish to advise the Federal
Government against the attempt to tinker with the form and structure of
the NLC. The government will not gain any political milestone by that.
Rather, it would alienate itself further from an already suspicious and
disenchanted citizenry. The government should know that the people
reserve the right to give their support to any person or group of persons.
Mutilating the NLC will at worse make the
people to find and rally round another person who seems to champion their
cause.
What we believe should be the
preoccupation of the government for now is not witch-hunting of apparent
‘enemies’ but that it should endeavour to win the confidence and trust of
the people who voted it to power. It is an indictment on the government
that it employs unwholesome means against the NLC in the fight for the
loyalty and allegiance of the people. We do believe that it is not the
intention of the people to have two sovereigns in the country. The fact
that the people frequently support the NLC means that the government’s
intended policies for which the NLC is forced to mobilise the people for
effective resistance are not well thought out and not in the overall
interest of the people.
Nigerians are not that na�ve not to know
who is on their side and who to surrender their popular sovereignty to.
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