On Friday, the organised labour kicked against the non-provision for fuel subsidy in the 2015 national budget just passed by the National Assembly. The association warns that it could plunge the country into “unnecessary crisis.”
The labour body made this known at this year’s May Day Celebration held at the Eagle’s Square in Abuja, where President Goodluck Jonathan was represented by the Minister of Labour , Senator Joel Ikenya.
Factional presidents of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, and Trade Union Congress, Bobboi Kaigama, spoke for the Labour at the event which was with the theme, ‘The working class, democratic consolidation and economic revival: Charting the way to national rebirth.’
The labour body made this known at this year’s May Day Celebration held at the Eagle’s Square in Abuja, where President Goodluck Jonathan was represented by the Minister of Labour , Senator Joel Ikenya.
Factional presidents of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Wabba, and Trade Union Congress, Bobboi Kaigama, spoke for the Labour at the event which was with the theme, ‘The working class, democratic consolidation and economic revival: Charting the way to national rebirth.’
They said the event coincided with the one year anniversary of the attack by the insurgent group, Boko Haram, in Nyanya, an outskirt of Abuja, in which some workers returning home from the last year’s May Day celebration lost their lives.
They recalled that similar “booby-trap” of non-provision for fuel subsidy in the budget was set for the then new administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua.
They warned that the “similar mischief” in 2007 resulted in a nationwide strike in just one month in the life of the Yar’Adua-led government.
They also disclosed their intention to engage the incoming administration on the need to increase the national minimum wage as soon as it was inaugurated.
They condemned the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other Africans in South Africa and tasked the incoming administration of the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, to address the insecurity and problems in the power sector, rescue the Chibok girls, increase workers’ salary, fight corruption, and reduce cost of governance, among others.
The Senate President, Senator David Mark, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, who were both scheduled to deliver goodwill messages at the event, were absent and did not send representatives.
The presidential rostrum on the podium and other noticeable special security arrangements at the venue were removed at about 10:10am, just before the event started, an indication that there was a last minute change in the plan by President Goodluck Jonathan to attend the ceremony.The event however witnessed a large turnout of workers in their colourful outfits.
The workers engaged in parade past the podium where Ikenya and other top government functionaries as well as labour leaders in attendance acknowledged them by waving hands to them.
•Members of Nigerian Union of Tailors, Oyo State, displaying during the May Day celebration in Ibadan... on Friday.
[/media-credit] •Members of Nigerian Union of Tailors, Oyo State, displaying during the May Day celebration in Ibadan… on Friday.
Other top government functionaries in attendance were the Minister of Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed, Minister of State for FCT, Jumoke Akinjide and Head of Service of the Federation, Danladi Kifasi.
In their goodwill messages, Ikenya and Mohammed, who described their messages as their valedictory addresses since it would be their last May Day outing before the expiration of the current administration on May 29, 2015, thanked the workers for the support they had offered the Goodluck administration from its inception.
On the non-provision for fuel subsidy in the 2015 Appropriation Act, Wabba said the provision for petroleum subsidies and inherent corruption in the schemes would naturally be eliminated when Nigeria was able to refine oil.
Wabba said, “The information on the non-provision for fuel subsidy in the 2015 national budget is already public knowledge. We hope this is not an attempt to plunge the country into unnecessary crisis.
“There is the need to go down memory lane and warn that the plan to reset the booby-trap that was laid by predecessors of Yar’Adua administration in 2007 is an ill wind that blows no good. “The consequence of similar sinister mischief in 2007 was a national strike by organised labour within a month of the inauguration of the Yar’Adua government.
The labour leaders demanded increment in national minimum wage while they lamented that the N18,000 approved in 2011 had not been implemented by many states.
“Indeed life has been very miserable especially for low income civil servants, a situation significantly aggravated by the drastic devaluation of the naira,” Kaigama said.
Wabba said the current N18,000 minimum wage was “no longer of any meaningful economic value to workers” because of the inflammatory trends engendered by the continuing devaluation of the naira.
The labour also lamented the persistent problem in the power sector since the return to democracy 16 years ago.
Wabba said, “Despite sinking a whooping investment of $40bn” in the power sector since 1999, “the only proofs we have to show for it are megawatts of darkness and gigabytes of excuses.”
On the economy, the labour urged the incoming government to block all avenues of leakages in the budget inflows and expenditure, reduce the cost of governance “which involves maintenance of a large retinue of staff and political hangers on.”
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