NLC And The Nigerian Masses

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)
Wednesday last week issued a statement
to call attention of the Federal Government to the negative impact its policies were having on the ordinary people of Nigeria. In fact, they allege that the Federal Government had chosen to pursue more policies that hurt the people.
The statement which was signed by President of the NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba said the Federal Government should scale down, halt and reverse, where possible a recent decision to privatise some public services. According to the statement, the State remains the driver of the commanding heights of the nation’s economy as well as the provider of jobs and services.
In addition to earlier policies that increased the Value Added Tax (VAT), electricity tariff and pump price of petroleum products, that made life miserable for many Nigerians, the performance of basic fundamental duties of State like the payment of salaries and pension as and when due has come under real threat.
They noted that the credible trend all over the world currently is the opportunity being given to the working class to come up with effective and genuine ways of tackling poverty, inequality, want, deprivation and misery. According to the statement, it has become rather urgent for the Federal Government to do a serious, aggressive, brave and sustainable inward look.
The Tide cannot agree less with the NLC and wish to add our voice to the idea of government working with labour on how to deal with some of the challenges of the day that now call for all hands to be on deck. Indeed, Nigeria has come to a place where people across the various divides and stake holding groups should work together and save our country.
More than ever before, the level of poverty, frustration and hardship in Nigeria has become very acute and diverse, all within a very short period. It is not comedy anymore, the news of people stealing food items; pots of soup and trading their children for rice or garri now pops up in mainstream media across Nigeria.
Perhaps, it should be stated that Nigeria is not the map or the land mass but the people. Nigeria is not the instrument of State but the people who gave everything within the landmass life. Those who govern Nigeria would get it wrong if they do every other thing right and get it wrong with the people.
History is replete with what happens when the population is very hungry and desperate. In the hands of such persons, nothing is important. That is why this call on the government to urgently consider the plight of the ordinary Nigerian has become very timely, imperative and instructive.
We wonder why the plight of the ordinary Nigerian is allowed to worsen, even when government promised to mitigate the effect of their policies. It has taken too long for government to come up with the new National Minimum Wage and other palliatives promised by this government. Indeed, the failure of the authorities to redeem electoral promises destroys the hope on other promises.
Even more worrisome is the unintended destruction of the public service. A situation where government is not able to pay salaries and pension as and when due simply announces the demise of the public service. The importance of the public service appears to be ignored and it is unfortunate.
For the concerns of the NLC to be addressed, Nigeria may need to go back to how it used to be – a strong and united labour under one leadership. We expect this to happen under a change minded government. On the part of the labour leaders, they should shun partisan politics and work for the people of Nigeria, especially the producers of the wealth of the nation.
If and when labour is united, they can then work with government to know when and how to privatise public services. This also can be a problem if such services are sold to persons with political patronage and run at rates that would be beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen.
On the whole, governments across the land should revive the public service, restore the organised labour and make haste to make life bearable for the ordinary Nigerian.