The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) wants to host town hall meetings across the country to engage political leaders in discussions about their programs for workers and pensioners.
NLC President Ayuba Wabba stated this on Wednesday at the ongoing 18th Harmattan School in Ilorin, Kwara State.
The 18th Harmattan School’s theme is “Expanding Nigeria’s Democratic Space for Trade Union Organizing in the Workplace.”
The program, which began on December 5 and will conclude on December 9, will be held at the Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour Studies (MINILS).
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Mr Wabba stated that the town hall gathering will provide a platform for evaluating political leaders running in the 2023 elections in terms of workers and pensioners in the country.
According to him, workers and ordinary Nigerians want food on their tables, and security among other basic necessities.
“This is in every state and local government; we will have town-hall meetings where we will engage political leaders about what they have for workers and pensioners.
“Where we are not convinced, we tell the workers and pensioners as well as ordinary Nigerians to take their destinies in their hands.
“The town-hall meetings will enable workers to determine those who plan to continue impoverishing them, worsening their poverty levels, and so on.
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“We must engage our leaders and politicians because we have families to take care of. We work to earn a living and we want food on the table of every Nigerian because we have the resources.
“We dare say that in our charter of demands, the major way to address poverty in Nigeria is for our industries to work,” he said.
Mr Wabba stated that the government alone cannot offer jobs, but that when industries are operational and manufacturing, imports would be reduced, jobs will be created, and poverty will be eradicated.
According to the NLC president, Nigeria has comparative advantages in the oil and gas sector of the economy.
According to him, it is now an eyesore throughout the country that, despite being a major oil producing country, we import a large portion of our petroleum product needs.
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“No OPEC member country in the world imports 100 per cent. It is only Nigeria because of the corruption that our leaders benefit from when they import.
“When you import you don’t even know the quantity. They give you a lot of bills and they say there is a subsidy.
”We have said the entry point for us to engage any politician is to give us his blueprint on what he wants to do with the refineries.
“They have sold more than 300 enterprises in the past, in most cases they close them down and continue to import. So nothing changes and we continue in shackles of the same cycle,’’ he said.
Mr Wabba also stated that the 2022 Harmattan School was appropriate because it marked the school’s 20th anniversary in Bauchi State.
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He praised the Kwara state government for creating a peaceful and conducive environment for the Harmattan school to operate.
“We are running this school in Kwara for obvious reasons, as MINILS is named after labour leader number one of both in substance and quality, Michael Imoudu of blessed memory.
“MINILS is very useful and can be attributed to the quality leadership that is being offered and therefore technically, we will continue to run the school here in Kwara.
“Since the inaugural Harmattan school in 2002, successive leadership of the NLC has continued to run this school yearly, we have also improved on the curriculum on contemporary issues of trade unions, among others,” he said.
Speaking at the event, Issa Aremu, Director-General/Chief Executive Officer of MINILS, praised the NLC for remaining committed to its founding aims, which included regular education of workers and members.
Mr Aremu stated that the NLC had demonstrated outstanding dedication to members’ education over the years through the yearly Rain school, monthly lecture series, state level leadership program, and study cycle.
He said that the congress’s good work complements MINILS’s core goal of advancing labor education for workers, companies, and government authorities.
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