Former national Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Salihu Lukman, has slammed the Nigeria Labour Congress under the leadership of Comrade Joe Ajaero for its decision to embark on a nation-wide strike despite President Bola Tinubu rolling out palliatives, saying it is unacceptable and will not augur well for our democracy.
While urging the labour Unions to shelve their proposed total strike and embrace the palliatives unveiled by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in his Monday national broadcast, Lukman stressed that the remarks attributed to the NLC President in his reaction, where he dismissed Tinubu’s broadcast as “not the silver bullet Nigerians expected,” were most unfortunate.
The APC chieftain urged the leadership of the NLC to take a second look at Tinubu’s palliatives enunciated and avoid the disaster of throwing away the baby with the bathwater.
Lukman said, “While acknowledging that apart from the repair of refineries, the NLC identified other four issues as reasons why President Asiwaju’s Tinubu’s July 31 National Broadcast didn’t provide the solutions to the hardship Nigerians are facing, somehow, the NLC was more speaking like a political opposition to President Asiwaju Tinubu’s government.
“Being a political opposition to the government of President Asiwaju Tinubu, nothing in the proposals contained in the national address merits acceptance as a solution to Nigeria’s problems by the NLC. As far as the NLC is concerned, repairs of refineries, unmasking those behind the subsidy fraud, matching public promises with a commitment on the issue of the minimum wage, increasing salaries of workers by the Federal Government, and promises of palliatives are the solutions to the hardship facing Nigerians. Didn’t the July 31 national broadcast attempt to address these issues?
“The statement completely ignores all the proposals contained in President Asiwaju Tinubu’s broadcast. It is almost as if the NLC response was written even before the broadcast and therefore completely blind to all the proposals.
“Having served the NLC and being conversant with the tradition of critically and dispassionately reviewing the government’s policy proposals, it was disappointing that the NLC reduced its responses to generalised commentary without reference to the specific issues contained in President Tinubu’s national broadcast.
“As Nigerians, we must appeal to the NLC leadership to rise above the narrow sentiment of playing to the gallery based on some deceptively flimsy argument of a so-called silver bullet, if you like silver bullet politics, which is simply egocentric and inconsistent with the interests of Nigerians, including that of the working class.
“While acknowledging that there would be gaps in the proposals by the government and challenges in terms of implementation, especially when it comes to guaranteeing that the broader interests of Nigerians are accommodated, swiftly dismissing them in the manner done by the NLC is unacceptable and will not augur well for our democracy.”
The former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum observed that Tinubu’s decision to address the nation was not only impressive but also reassuring.
“The mere fact that President Asiwaju Tinubu finds it compelling to address the nation given the difficulties Nigerians are facing since the withdrawal of fuel subsidies is commendable. If anything, this confirms that President Asiwaju Tinubu is not in denial and aspires to ensure that his government is responsive.
“It is indeed required to give life to Section 14 (2) (a and c) of the Nigerian Constitution.” In the past, such addresses and proposals were only made after protests and strikes. Coming before any strike or protest is important; therefore, we encourage the government to take forward all the proposals contained in the address and use them to engage targeted organised groups in the country, including the NLC.
“For instance, the Federal Government should immediately meet with the organised private sector to work out modalities for the implementation and disbursement of the proposed N75 billion aimed at strengthening the manufacturing sector ‘to increase its capacity to expend and create good-paying jobs.’ The engagement should put in place the agreed conditions and framework for the selection of 75 enterprises to access the N1 billion credit. Part of the conditions should include the minimum number of workers to be employed by each of the beneficiary enterprises.
“Similarly, the government should also engage organisations of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises to set conditions and a framework to access the N125 billion being set aside to energise the sector.
“Criteria for the selection of the 1 million nanobusinesses that would access the N50 billion Conditional Grant should be agreed upon. Also, the engagement with organisations of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises should establish the needed criteria for the selection of the 100,000 MSMEs that would access the start-ups’ conditional grant of N75 billion being proposed by the government.
“The third category that the federal government should immediately engage is farmers and agricultural associations aimed at putting in place a clear framework for the disbursement of 225,000 metric tonnes of fertilisers.
“Seedlings and other inputs In addition, the federal government may wish to use the engagement with this group to explore strategies for achieving the cultivation of 500,000 hectares of farmland and all-year-round farming. Noting that the government has earmarked N200 billion from the N500 billion approved by the National Assembly, it will be necessary to use the engagement with farmers and agricultural associations to negotiate both ownership and commitment to achieve success.
“The fourth category of groups that should be engaged immediately is transporters, aimed at negotiating the implementation of the proposed investment of N100 billion to acquire 3000 units of buses. Deeper strategic thinking will be required in engaging this category given that this is the sector that is directly affected by high increases in PMS prices because of the withdrawal of subsidies.
“The goal of engagement with respect to transporters should be to revolutionise the transport sector, which should lead to the rebirth of public transportation in the country. This would require stronger collaboration with state governments, most of whom already have established transport services.”
While appealing to all organised groups in the country to demonstrate a corresponding commitment to also share the burden of resolving Nigeria’s challenges, Lukman said President Tinubu should consider giving all his ministers a clear mandate to ensure strong engagement with organised groups.
“In particular, engagement with the NLC and other labour groups must target preempting strikes and protests in all sectors. In the context of that, as a democratic nation, we must begin to set benchmarks for allowable limits for all strikes in all sectors. The Minister of Labour and, by extension, ministers in all sectors who fail to operate within such benchmarks must be shown the way out. This is more to ensure that government services in all sectors accommodate the diverse interests of citizens in those sectors.”
