Nigerians, NLC and the glorious day
SIR: The bullheaded intractability with which the Obasanjo-led Federal Government has headlessly chosen to execute the imperialistic economic principles, policies, reforms and conditionalities as dictated by the Breton Woods Institutions has entrenched the reign of scoundrelism in Nigeria.
The multidimensional passionate intervention and plea by well-meaning Nigerians that the so-called deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector, reckless privatisation, petroleum product price increase, economic reforms should be given a human face has fallen on a deaf ear and treated with mulish inflexibility.
Beyond accent is descent. It is clear to all Nigerians that we are in a make or break situation. The battle is not that of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) alone. It is for all Nigerians. We must collectively heed the admonition of professor Paulo Freire in his book Pedagogy of the oppressed that 'The revolution is made neither by the leaders for the people nor by the people for the leaders, but by both acting together in unshakeable solidarity."
If Nigerians and the NLC fail in the forthcoming November 16, 2004 strike action, it will eternally sound the death-knell of strikes in Nigeria, it will concretise our economic strangulation in Nigeria, it will dragoon the NLC into the abyss of unspeakable agony, it will lead to the glorification of despotism and it will lead to the glamorisation of legislative and executive buffoonery in Nigeria. All hands must be on deck on that Glorious Day. One wonders what Adams Oshiomhole was doing in the so-called cushioning and palliative contraption.
Before the great Railway Workers strike in 1949, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe wrote a letter through his then West African Pilot to Pa Imoudu, the veteran unionist. He said "Courage brother, do not stumble or falter. Though the path be dark as night, there's a star to guide the humble. Trust in God and do the right."
I admonish us as Nigerians and members of the NLC that it will not be easy, but it is the only sure and reasonable path of honour for Nigerians. We will suffer deprivations, hunger, police and army brutality. But we must march on with Trojan perseverance and Spartan equanimity. It was Alexander Pope that said :"Let the ends of things disjoin, it is the whole world that suffers." We must move on.
Bobson Gbinije,
Warri, Delta State.
