Written by Victor Ikhatalor
Earlier on in the life of the Buhari administration as mutterings of “price modulations, ala subsidy removal”, you never really know with Ibe Kachikwu, began to surface, Labour leaders went amok running around in circles, with dark foreboding thoughts in their minds.
They feared being hoodwinked,and I almost bust my gut laughing when a dispirited Labour house lamented that the key participants of this government being chief collaborators in the sit out agitation against Goodluck Jonathan's move in 2012 were now the same people who were trying to pull the wool over their eyes and do the same thing. What duplicity they raved!
Serves them right. That is what you get when you abdicate your core responsibility of “actually representing and fighting for worker rights”, and instead enmesh yourselves in nocturnal political doings and Ghana must go bag exchanges. "LOL".
As a faction of a factionalized Labour movement called out a strike it has become apparent that the “selling of the peoples porridge” by Labour that has become an art form over time has culminated in a rudderless, fragmented, toothless, corrupt Labour movement.
The opprobrium that serenades the Nigerian Political class is now Labours baggage. Witness the various interviews on Nigerian television stations of ordinary Nigerians and workers to boot and you’ll recognize the prevailing trend: “there is a deficit of trust in the actions and intentions of Labour and more damning is that like the crooked Sheriff in an old western,the people no longer take them seriously when they cry blue murder”.
A crying shame! For, who will now stand as the rallying point for workers and the people against injustices and arbitrariness of government? It says a lot that notwithstanding the non participation of the Ajaero faction of NLC, who by the way is now suddenly referred to and given status by government as NLC factional leader, or the non participation of TUC, the Wabba led NLC still dwarfs them in the sheer size of its adherent unions and should ordinarily still be able to send shock waves when it goes to battle.
This loss of faith in Labour by workers and the people is a long time coming. About the issue? In 2012, I did not think the deregulation policy of Jonathan was wrong and I do not think it is wrong now. As Labour have sadly witnessed, their cohorts in the civil organizations and sundry collaborators against that policy are now in government and have decided to afterall go the same way albeit with their own rationalizations.
I really don’t care about going into the rationalizations, then or now but will just say that subsidy must stop. The elephant in the room is corruption and its as simply as that. For so long a handful of people have fleeced and thieved the commonwealth under the guise and mire of subsidy and it must stop. Lets stop running around in circles.
Witness how diesel is now selling for less than petrol! Many have forgotten the trajectory of how that happened.Witness how much it cost to buy an MTN or Econet sim at inception! See how telecom companies now beg you to take them for free. Witness these examples of opening up the space and witness how it pans out in time.
President Buhari is obstinate about fighting corruption and I support him absolutely in that. Subsidy is an ongoing corruption and the downstream sector has to be opened up as I hope Power et al will be in the nearest future.Competition and private initiative weeds out the bad vice that is public/government corruption.
Labour have abdicated their core responsibilities for so long it is traitorous. While Labour leaders fancy themselves as politicians and hobnob with that class they have failed to fight worthy battles. A puny and beggarly minimum wage that cannot even be paid by various state governments have been left unchallenged for so long. Workers have been left to the whims of State Governors and employers while Labour leaders frolicked in opulence.
In a nation where its citizens are asked to sacrifice and toil in dehumanizing conditions, Labour leaders do not think it a noble fight to set to right our elected “Princes and Lords”, who by right of political conquest continue to arrogate to themselves obscene and humongous pecuniary benefits in the guise of salaries and allowances.
Our National Assembly members, have been touted to be the “defacto numero uno” in remuneration of such assemblies in the world, and by a mile at that.I daresay that if an analysis is done pitting all our political and public office holders with their counterparts in the world,the same trend will be prevalent. This parasitic trend is immoral, diabolical, and heartless especially faced with a “broke country”, where all of us subjects must starve for a brighter tomorrow.
Surely,the rationale behind these office holders, taking so much for so few from so many should be the concern of Labour? There are a lot of ills in our society that Labour through its complicity have allowed to fester and for so long as they keep at it,for so long will their decline and irrelevance continue.
Labour, if they ever want to regain relevance should wake up and shelve their political togas and get back to the spirit of “aluta continua”.
THESE ARE THE WORDS OF
Victor Ikhatalor
Founder of "The MyTribeNigeria Initiative"
Author of #MyTribeNigeria
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