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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Democracy on trial
THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) as presently constituted remains the only bastion of democracy with enough bargaining power to checkmate executive excesses, particularly the current wayward drift by President Olusegun Obasanjo towards dictatorship.
Under the guise of democratising the NLC, an organisation which he perceives as his greatest opponent in his political ambition to enthrone autocratic rule in the country, President Olusegun Obasanjo has sent labour reform bill to the National Assembly, ostensibly to make the Labour Union conform with, and relevant to the dictates' of the current nascent democratic tradition in the country which lays great emphasis on civil liberty, freedom of association, freedom of movement and freedom of self-expression.
On the face of it, the proposed labour reform bill tends to show case Obasanjo as a committed democrat and a statesman who is very much concerned about perceived anomalies in the organisation and operations of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) as presently constituted, and therefore seeks necessary changes through amendment of the country labour law.
However, the real intention of the proposed labour reform bill is betrayed by the introductory sophistic polemics which recommends the decentralisation of the central labour union as presently constituted to pave way for the up shoot of splinter smaller unions which will be pliable to presidential manipulation, and the insertion of two-thirds quorum precondition qualification for participation by unions in any industrial strike. In effect the proposed labour reform bill is designed to disorganise, weaken and remove the operational power of the NLC in future industrial encounters with Obasanjo's administration.
With enormous political and financial power at its beck and call, which the Presidency deploys at will in whichever direction that pleases him in his
inordinate ambition to rule autocratically, coupled with his military background that emboldens him in his pursuit of unilateral political goal, General Obasanjo has successfully muzzled, castrated and ultimately emasculated all democratic institutions and functionaries who are supposed to serve as check-and-balance to presidential excesses. Labour alone remains the only organisation which is closely-knit, united and free from the political leprous touch of the Presidency. Labour's hard-liner position in his respect makes it the incorrigible whipping boy of the Presidency who must be disciplined and subdued at all cost.
Having successfully sidelined all democratic institutions and functionaries, perceived to be real and potential enemies, President Olusegun sees the political coast as being clear to launch frontal attack on the Labour Union. Obasanjo's ally in this suicidal mission of self-destruction appears to be the National House of Assembly now heavily packed with his military acolytes in Agbada dress.
The current Presidential aberrations, most particularly his orchestrated plot against the innocuous Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) tends to confirm the fear currently being entertained by the concerned citizens, not excluding my humble self, that President Olusegun Obasanjo is now being held under a powerful spell which has robbed him of all good sense of judgement in the correct assessment of the true position of social, economic and political affairs of the policy. Like the Biblical Saul of Tarsus (alias Paul) "Obasanjo knows what is good, but he approves of evil". Expressing the same idea in another way in his celebrated monumental literary work, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe writes; "The Falcon can no longer hear the falconer, things fall apart".
The Falconer here represents the electorate that voted President Obasanjo to power while the falcon stands for Obasanjo himself who has now lost touch with his political benefactor and who is no longer willing to listen to them and serve them. Obasanjo has completely abandoned the masses at the foot of mountain Olympia where he now dwells with nobles, oligarchs, captains of industry and neocolonialists agents in the toga of IMF officials and world bank experts. With his new - found friends, Obasanjo now fiddles with drinks and sumptuous dinner while his political benefactors - bent backs, woodculters and farmers wallow in the quagmire of poverty and hunger.
Nigeria labour has now filled the political vacuum abandoned by Obasanjo. Labour is now seen as the liberator and defender of the defenceles. The NLC under the indomitable leadership of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has naturally, therefore, attracted to itself the odium of the President who is now calling for its crucifixion. The successful passage of the reform bill by the National House of Assembly will ultimately mail the coffin of the renascent democracy whose conveyor belt is now wobbling and fumbling, and whose light is also flickering with uncertainty under Obasanjo's fascist political leadership.
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