By Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja
The immediate-past National Vice Chairman, Northwest, of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Salihu Moh. Lukman, has faulted the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC for attacking President Bola Tinubu’s Monday night national broadcast, accusing the organized labour of now behaving like an opposition party.
Lukman, a former Director General of the Progressives Governors Forum PGF had also worked withe the NLC several years ago.
Reacting to NLC’s response to the presidential broadcast, Lukman said the union conveniently ignored all the proposals made by the President in the broadcast.
NLC had dismissed the president’s speech as empty and “not the silver bullet Nigerians expected”.
However, Lukman said going through the NLC’s statement signed by its President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, one is tempted to conclude that the main objective of their response was more to dismiss all the policy proposals contained in the President’s address as a justification for why the scheduled national protest being organized by the NLC will go ahead on August 2.
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 of the hardship Nigerians are facing, somehow, the NLC was more speaking like a political opposition to President Tinubu’s government.
“Being a political opposition to the government of President Tinubu, nothing in the proposals contained in the national address merits acceptance as 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 commitment on issue of minimum wage, increase in salaries of workers by Federal Government, and promises of palliatives are the solutions to hardships facing Nigerians. Didn’t the July 31 national broadcast attempt to address these issues?
“The statement completely ignores all the proposals contained in President Tinubu’s broadcast. It is almost as if the NLC’s response was written even before the broadcast and therefore completely blind to all the proposals. Having served the NLC, and conversant with the tradition of critically and dispassionately reviewing government’s policy proposals, it was disappointing that the NLC reduced its responses to generalized commentary without reference to the specific issues contained in President Tinubu’s national broadcast.
“As Nigerians, we must appeal to NLC leadership to rise above the narrow sentiments 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 interest of Nigerians, including that of the working class.
“While acknowledging that there would be gaps in the proposals by government and there would be challenges in terms of implementation especially when it comes to guaranteeing that broader interests of Nigerians are accommodated, swiftly dismissing them in the manner done by NLC is unacceptable and will not augur well for our democracy.
“The mere fact that President Tinubu finds it compelling to address the nation given the difficulties Nigerians are facing since the withdrawal of fuel subsidy is commendable. If anything, this confirms that President Asiwaju Tinubu is not in denial and aspire 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 contained are only made after protests and strikes. Coming before any strike or protest, it is important therefore, we encourage the government to take forward all the proposals contained in the address and use them to engage targeted organized groups in the country, including the NLC.
“For instance, the Federal Government should immediately meet with 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 agreed conditions and framework for the selection of the 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, government should also engage organisations of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to set conditions and framework to access the N125 billion being set aside to energize the sector.
“Criteria for the selection of the 1 million nano businesses that would access the N50 billion Conditional Grant should be agreed. Also, the engagement with organisations of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises should establish needed criteria for the selection of the 100,000 MSMEs that would access the start-ups Conditional Grant of N75 billion being proposed by government.
“The third category that the federal government should immediately engage is farmers and agricultural associations aimed at putting in place clear framework for the disbursement of 225,000 metric Tonnes of fertilizers”, he added.
Source: Vanguard
