Our attention has been drawn to the reaction of Owei Lakemfa, Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to the communiqué issued by the Integrity Group of Labour Unions after its meeting held in Lagos at the Weekend. In his reaction to the report in The Punch newspaper of Monday, December 19, 2011, Lakemfa tagged members of the group as “agents of the government” for having the audacity to express the view that the labour leadership at the national level lacked direction and focus on the on-going debate on the petroleum subsidy withdrawal.
Our attention has been drawn to the reaction of Owei Lakemfa, Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to the communiqué issued by the Integrity Group of Labour Unions after its meeting held in Lagos at the Weekend. In his reaction to the report in The Punch newspaper of Monday, December 19, 2011, Lakemfa tagged members of the group as “agents of the government” for having the audacity to express the view that the labour leadership at the national level lacked direction and focus on the on-going debate on the petroleum subsidy withdrawal.
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Ordinarily, we would not have bothered to respond to this name-calling which has unfortunately become the hallmark of actions in the Labour House since the scattering of the Secretariat of the NLC after its March 2011 Delegates’ Conference. Rather than policy pronouncements of the NLC being based on deep thought, logic and analyses, we now have name-calling as the centrepiece of Congress reaction to serious national issues.
Even though The Punch did a good job of reporting the kernel of our position, for the avoidance doubt, we reproduce our two-paragraph statement on government’s proposed withdrawal of petroleum subsidy as follows:
“The meeting noted that the issue of withdrawal of fuel subsidy or deregulation is one major policy which has preoccupied the attention of the labour movement over the past decades right from the military era up to the current democratic dispensation. It equally noted that the fallout of this prolong struggle against this policy as well as other government neo-liberal policies had availed it the opportunity to exhaustively debate and carry out intensive studies on such policies especially as they negatively affect the working class or the poor in the society. The session specifically noted that one such document was the Report of the 10-man Committee on Deregulation set up by the Nigeria Labour Congress in 2009 which was published and widely circulated.
“The meeting is worried that in spite of the several reference documents as well as procedures as to what ought to be done on the issue of subsidy withdrawal or deregulation, the labour movement at the moment seems to lack clear direction on the matter even in the face of government’s aggressive campaigns and mobilisation to force the policy on the Nigerian people. The session noted that the traditional argument of the labour movement against the policy of subsidy withdrawal has not changed due to the lack of political will on the part of leadership of the country to tackle headlong the inherent problems in the downstream sector of the oil industry. The session therefore concludes that subsidy withdrawal will visit untold hardship on the already impoverished masses. The session calls on President Goodluck Jonathan to have a rethink on this policy since the government does not exist for the basis of revenue generation or resources but purely for the welfare and security of its citizens.”
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Invariably, we are convinced that Nigerians will demand explanations from the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress as to what has happened that the struggle it has championed since 1987, it is now in the fringe and periphery of the same struggle at a time that government is most determined to engage in the mother-of-all-subsidy-withdrawal. Is it not rather ironic that it has become the responsibility of the Obasanjos of this world and the National Assembly, to now spearhead the struggle against subsidy withdrawal? How come that Obasanjo, whom we fought fiercely throughout his 8-year rule, when he increased fuel prices a record eleven times, is now in the forefront of the campaign against fuel subsidy withdrawal, and our NLC that is steeled in the furnace of that struggle in the last quarter of a century is today a footnote in that campaign?
Since Lakemfa was at the fringe of activities at the national headquarters of NLC during the 2009-2010 struggle against deregulation, we advise him to read the minutes of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Congress of December 15, 2009, which debated the recommendations of the Adeyemi-led 10-man Committee on Deregulation. He and those currently at the helm of affairs at the NLC are also advised to read the 188-page Report of that committee. It is only then that they will be able to appreciate the meaning of our view that labour leaders at the national level lacked direction.
As for the TUC, we advise Comrade Peter Esele, its President, to get himself properly informed on issues before jumping to making comments on them. Even by his reaction, he admitted that those who issued the communiqué are seasoned labour leaders; who have been in our movement before his emergence. They have consistently fought on this issue and other unfriendly policies on the side of Nigerian workers and people long before he joined the movement. He therefore lacks the credential or the pedigree to make such derogatory remarks on his seniors in the movement.
In the fullness of time, the real agents of government will be exposed and Nigerians will come to know who the real faces of the sell-outs are.
Comrade Leke Success
For: Integrity Group of Labour Unions
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