The United labour Congress of Nigeria (ULC) says it is deeply worried that despite all promises made by the Federal Government to stem the tide of the continued slaughter of Nigerian citizens in the North East and North Central, the gory events have escalated.
The ULC said that the number of Nigerians who meet their untimely and gruesome death in the hands of blood thirsty persons and groups keeps growing on daily basis and expanding in scope, while government watches helplessly.
This was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the Central Working Committee (CWC) meeting of the United Labour Congress (ULC) of Nigeria held in Lagos last Saturday and signed by Joe Ajaero, National President of ULC and made available to The Tide.
The organised labour averred that it has become frightening to Nigerian workers and the masses at the lack of premium which Nigerian politicians and leaders give on the lives of an average Nigerian, adding that they do not think that lives of Nigerian citizens matter again as head-count of those who have fallen to the merciless weapons of the butchers while politicians look inured and insensitive as mass grave after mass grave are dug and filled every day with the corpses of dead Nigerians has become unprecedented.
“Our worry became alarming when we observed that the institutions that ought to take charge of this threat to our nation seem not to have any clue as to the dynamic of the killing. It is befuddling that for an unfortunate event that has been on for some years, the nation’s security apparatchik cannot categorically tell Nigerians why and who is responsible for this act”.
“That any government or leadership that fails to protect the lives and properties of its citizenry is a failed government. We have to be alive to enjoy whatsoever other benefits or achievements the government may have claimed to have attained during its tenure. The killing must stop. The flow of blood must cease and the reign of fear and terror must be removed”, it added.
According to the communiqué, the refusal of the Federal Government to rein the nation’s security apparatchik and remove the erring heads in the face of complete failure to halt the apparent civil war in the country makes the government more complicit. “We had thought that this would have been one of the measures that would have restored confidence and rebuilt trust which will send the right signals of its intentions to resolve the security crisis”.
The communiqué also urged the Federal Government to take urgent steps to resolve the issues surrounding the proposed new minimum wage for workers in the country.
“The National Minimum Wage negotiation was becoming a negotiation to nowhere as the government seems bent on ensuring that it is forever delayed, scuttled or at best played politics with but the last meeting of the negotiating committees offers a ray of hope as the committee’s work as agreed will wind up compulsorily this August”, he added.