By Cross Udo and Ben Adoga, Abuja
The organised labour yesterday vowed to ally with any pro-worker’s political party or organisation to rescue the country from sailing into ‘a dangerously drift’.

It said it would no longer tolerate anti-people policies, fuel scarcity, unemployment, and insecurity, adding that Nigerians are entitled to decent work, good governance, as well as social and economic justice.

Labour also said that, comparatively, the present minimum wage of N30, 000, which amounts to a mere N1, 000 per day for the workers, “is not anywhere near what is being spent in feeding a prisoner in the country”.

It, however, added, “We are not saying that they are taking good care of the prisoners, but we are saying that prisoners are better than workers.”

This is as the Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) has charged all workers in both formal and informal sectors to stop being card-carrying members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying the two parties had destroyed the country.

These were some of the positions taken by labour leaders and activists at a Political Roundtable on Sustainable Democracy in Nigeria organised by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Conference Centre, Abuja.

It had the theme, “The Role of Organised Labour in Promoting Participatory Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria: Perspectives on 2023 General Elections.”

At the event, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), urged Nigerians, especially members of Organised Labour, to vote out non-performing politicians in the 2023 general elections.

In his opening remarks, the President of the NLC, Ayuba Wabba, who was represented by the chairman, NLC Political Commission, Dr. Najeem Yasin, accused politicians of running the nation aground, and that the worker should be selective in voting so that politicians who have not done well would be voted out.

“There is no gainsaying the fact that our country needs her best women and men now to salvage the ship of state which is now sailing dangerously adrift.”

He said the “increasing wave of insecurity, unemployment, poverty, hunger and short supply of basic amenities and utilities including petrol show that things are falling apart in our country.”

Wabba stressed that the job of fixing our country cannot be left to professional politicians.

He said in the past 20 years of the current democracy and for the most of over 60 years of Nigeria’s independence, “politicians have demonstrated great talent in serving themselves, families and cronies, it is self-service that has brought us close to the edge of great national disaster.”

“We now need a new breed without greed who will serve the interest of Nigerian workers and people. There is no better place to get this crop of politicians than from the working class, professionals, and ordinary people who have excelled in their fields of calling.

“2023 is the year to retire all professional politicians who campaign without commitment to any manifesto. 2023 is the year to retire professional politicians who see politics as an end and not a means to serve the ordinary people of our country.

“2023 is the year for workers, professionals, market women and men and our youth to organize and mobilise their colleagues to do the needful – which is to use our Permanent Voters Cards to send professional politicians to their permanent retirement.”

Wabba said 2023 should be a year that political campaigns should be based on a clearly defined manifesto that must resonate with the demands of Nigerian workers and people.

He challenged every worker to register, collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), and vote on Election Day during the 2023 general election.

Also speaking, President of TUC, Quadri Olaleye, said Nigerian workers have resolved to stop being onlookers while politicians continue to destroy Nigeria’s economy.

“Today,” he said, “We are here to discuss, redefine, and strategise on how to rescue the soul of our dear country. Some naysayers have said, “what are they going to do differently this time?”

Olaleye added, “I think that we should not react to such, rather it is our action after this conference that would convince them that we are not ready to waste the opportunity in our hands this time around.

“Comrades, sometimes I feel ashamed blaming the politicians for the looting and mismanagement of the economy.

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“I feel that way because it is the lack of active participation of the Organised Labour in Nigerian politics that is responsible for the pains Nigerians are going through today.

“We have not successfully tapped into the opportunity provided in a liberal democracy which emphasises grassroots participation and negotiation of interests. Staying aloof would further worsen the situation as there is no dividing line between politics and the economy.

“Our kind of politics is such that a winner takes all. Hence, it has become very unsafe to consistently allow politicians to make decisions on issues affecting the socio-economic well-being of workers, and by extension, the Nigerian masses.”

According to ZLP, “Some have said it is about mobilising the grassroots, and we equally have people at the grassroots that can do that. For me, the problem is not about getting a reasonable number to win elections, nor is it about our spread; it is just about our inability to put our acts together.

“I make bold to say that the emergence of credible leaders with a working-class background is capable of changing, re-engineering, and revamping the economy and guaranteeing a living wage and social justice for the working people.”

Also speaking, the National Chairman of the ZLP, Chief Dan Nwanyanwu, argued that it had been the Nigerian workers giving life-support to many politicians in both the APC and the PDP “which has been raping them to rape the country”.

Nwanyanwu said, “Many of you workers sitting here are card-carrying members of the APC and the PDP. Stop carrying their cards! Stop encouraging them with bad governance!

“Get your voter’s card, registration is ongoing now, go and register if you have not registered! We cannot continue to shout every day that we will take over the power, the time is now!”

He called for an alliance between the Labour Party and ZLP, promising that he would not mind stepping down as the national chairman of ZLP for it to work.

On his part, former chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, advised the Organised Labour to forge unity among the trade unions and labour movements in the country, at the least based on a minimum agenda of mobilising, educating, enlightening, and consciencetising Nigerian workers to get them to resolve to use the electoral process in the politics leading to 2023 general elections; in particular to motivate and encourage Nigerian workers to register to vote.

He said, “As 2023 general elections are literally around the corner, this, it can be argued, is the most realistic potentially successful option to pursue in the present circumstances.

“Beyond 2023, concerted effort can then be channelled and focused on the creation/strengthening of a working people’s party, which must be well established and structured for future more impactful engagement in Nigerian politics.

“It needs to be recognised that in the present circumstances, workers ignore participation in electoral politics at their peril.

“Ordinarily, as is well known, unity is strength; and unity is necessary and desirable to actualise the objectives and aspiration of getting Nigerian workers and other progressive forces’ active participation in electoral politics to rescue Nigeria and widen and deepen the scope for democratic development and good democratic governance in the country.

“The time of narrowly believing that workers’ interests can only be advanced through collective bargaining is over. The time of “Siddon look”, while ruffians and crooks occupy and dominate the political and governance spaces, through manipulation of the electoral process in our country is over.”

On his part, Chairman of TUC Political Commission, Dr. Ayodele Olorunfemi, said Congress, at its last meeting, resolved not to be onlookers, but raise the consciousness of its members on the political development in the country.

He said, “If you are not in charge of political power, you cannot be economically in charge. This is the irony of the GE working-class people who create the wealth only for a few political leaders to enjoy.

“Nigerian workers must ensure that those who emerge as leaders are transformational and transactional as it has been. We must resist such transactional leaders.”

Jega said workers have long been victims of bad governance in the country, adding that this has to stop because they constitute a sizable population of the electorate that has the voting power to decide who wins in an election.

Comparatively, the union leader said the present minimum wage of N30,000, which amounts to a mere N1000 per day for the workers, is not anywhere near what is being spent in feeding a prisoner in the country.

“We are not saying that they are taking good care of the prisoners, but we are saying that prisoners are better than workers,” he said.