YENAGOA — THE Conference of Nigerian Political Parties-Nigerians United for Democracy (CNPP-NUD) Bayelsa State chapter has faulted the Senate passage of the executive sponsored bill seeking to decentralise the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), saying it amounts to enthronement of civilian dictatorship.
According to the CNPP-NUD, the presentation and speedy passage of the anti labour bill was a clear indication that the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration is not ready to tolerate any opposition which labour represents on account of its being the leading voice of the down-trodden masses of the country.
The CNPP-NUD in a statement signed by its chairman, Mr Ebikibina Miriki, made available to newsmen in Yenagoa also decried the wave of insecurity in the country especially in Rivers State where hundreds of lives have been lost in recent times as a result of fratricidal war between two rival armed groups.
Miriki noted with sadness the claim by President Obasanjo that the Bill seeks to make labour democratic in conformity with the nascent democracy, saying it is a ploy to clip the wings of the NLC because of the inability of his administration to accommodate opposing views no matter how constructive and in the interest of the country.
He noted, “the attempt to emasculate labour through an executive bill is not only a denial by the federal government through the instrumentality of the police and other security agents, the fundamental rights of Nigerian workers to dissent and peaceful assembly through popular mass rallies but placing Nigerians at the threshold of relapsing into a nation devoid of opposition and where unpopular and cruel government policies are forced down the throat of hapless masses.”
While commending the NLC for being in the forefront of the crusade against policies that are inimical to the down trodden masses of the country, the CNPP-NUD chieftain lamented that with the senate passage of the bill there might be no light at the end of the tunnel for the traumatised Nigerian workers.
The body also condemned in strong terms the spate of killing in Port Harcourt and its environs and called on the warring groups to sheathe their swords in the interest of peace. He also called on the Rivers State government to live up to its responsibility rather than blaming its sister states of sponsoring the carnage which is now threatening the socio economic and political life of the state.
It also described as a national shame the recent disappearance of the detained merchant vessel under the watchful eyes of the nation's security agencies from the nation's territorial waters and called for the setting up of a high powered judicial commission of inquiry with a view to bringing to book all those involved in the ugly incident.
