Rivers TUC Wants Buhari To Tackle Poverty, Unemployment

The Trade Union Con
gress of Nigeria (TUC), Rivers State Chapter, has called on the President-Elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), to ensure he tackles the twin evil of poverty and unemployment in the country after assumption of office.
Speaking to The Tide in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, the state chairman, TUC, Comrade Chika Onuegbu, said the election that produced the president-elect was historic and an indication that democracy is growing in Nigeria.
Onuegbu said that the union believes that the historic emergence of Buhari is a clear indication that democracy is growing in Nigeria, stressing that the days of impurity are numbered and leadership is about the people who are the real owners of government.
The union leader said TUC appealed to the out-going President and National Assembly to quickly pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) into law now that the election of the President and National Assemble has been concluded.
Onuegbu emphasised that the country has lost hundreds of billions of dollars in oil and gas investment due to the non-passage of the bill.
He said that the truth remains that investors have continued to adopt a wait-and-see attitude retraining from making any new investment pending passage of the bill.
The TUC boss added that since 2009 when the Yar’Adua administration first introduced the PIB, no new Final Investment Decision (FID) has been taken on any oil and gas project in Nigeria, now even on the government promoted Brass LNG project.
He said the oil and gas in Nigeria is dithering whereas there are new oil discoveries all over Africa drawing in investors just as new technology is making hitherto unreachable and uneconomic hydrocarbon deposits accessible in Europe and North America thus attracting investors to those environments.
He said failure to pass the PIB will mean that the new National Assembly and the administration of Buhari will have to start afresh in line with legislative tradition.
Onuegbu said this will be very unfortunate for the country.

Philip Okparaji