JAF SALUTES THE NIGERIAN WORKERS ON THE OCCASION OF THE 13TH NATIONAL DELEGATES CONFERENCE (NDC) OF THE NIGERIA LABOUR CONGRESS (NLC)
● TIME FOR A RADICAL AND CLASS-CONSCIOUS LABOUR LEADERSHIP TO DEFEND THE COLLECTIVE INTEREST OF NIGERIAN WORKERS AND OPPRESSED MASSES!
● AND TO INTENSIFY THE STRUGGLE FOR SYSTEM CHANGE!
1. Solidarity Message to the Nigerian Workers and allies! The Joint Action Front (JAF) brings fraternal solidarity to Nigerian workers and the entire labour movement on the occasion of the 13th National Delegate Conference (NDC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) holding at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th, February, 2023.
2. For those who may not be aware, JAF is a pro-Labour organization and fraternal ally of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC). We are, historically, since 2005 the civil society arm of the Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO) through which we played important roles in collaboration with the labour centres to resist anti-poor economic policies of successive governments in Nigeria, not the least, the January 2012 mass uprising against fuel subsidy removal and fuel price hikes”. We. can recall our declaration of Mass Action that commenced on January 3rd 2012 that lasted till the afternoon when it was repressed by military violence!
3. We note that 45 years ago, in 1978, when the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was founded as the only national federation of trade unions, it came with the promise of stout defense of the class interest of Nigerian workers, youth and oppressed masses. Prior to then, four industrial labour centres held sway namely, Nigeria Trade Union Congress (NTUC), Labour Unity Front (LUF), United Labour Congress (ULC), and Nigeria Workers Council (NWC).
THE GLORIOUS DAYS: For the most part, the NLC served meritoriously as the defender of the industrial and economic interest of Nigerian workers and the oppressed masses. The NLC and its allies also played crucial roles in the anti-military struggles and clamour for civil rule in the 90s. For the most part, the NLC served meritoriously as the defender of the industrial and economic interest of Nigerian workers and the oppressed masses. The NLC and its allies also played roles in the struggle against World Bank/IMF dictated anti-poor economic agenda and anti-military struggles and clamour for civil rule in the 80s/90s.
Following the enthronement of civil rule in 1999, the NLC also played important roles in the mass mobilization of the workers, youth and oppressed masses against the anti-poor policies of the Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan governments especially such policies like fuel price hike, deregulation and privatization.
This was a time when “if NLC sneezes, the occupant of Aso Rock would catch cold!”
4. Regrettably in the last one decade at least, any conscientious observer of the situation in Nigeria will agree with us that the fortunes of the labour movement have dwindled considerably especially with regards to the fulfillment of its mandate of consistent defense of the class interests of workers and the oppressed masses in general. Especially in the last eight years of the outgoing government of President Muhammadu Buhari, the NLC has shirked its responsibility, failing in many instances to provide bold leadership to the struggles of Nigerian workers, youth and oppressed masses while only issuing statements and threats it rarely followed through.
5. As a result, Nigerian workers have suffered all kinds of injustice in the last eight years without any real response from the labour movement. For instance, the share of Nigerian workers out of national production output has plummeted with the value of the N30, 000 minimum wage no more than the value of wage in the 1980s or less. This is due to rising inflation which has eaten deep into the value of Nigeria’s currency and concomitantly workers wage thereby trapping workers in a monthly cycle of misery.
Worse still, some states have not even fully implemented four years after it has become a law. So it is not surprising that the Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reports that nothing less than 133 million Nigerians out of a population of 210 million are living in multidimensional poverty.
6. Conversely, the proportion of the share of the employers out of national production output has quadrupled within the same period under review. According to a recent report by Oxfam, about three Nigerian billionaires earn as much wealth as 83 million Nigerian people demonstrating the extreme concentration of wealth that has taken place in the last one decade while the labour movement continues to look the other way.
This is aside the worsening of the conditions of work, extreme exploitative policies and other anti-labour practices like casualization and contract staffing that have nearly reduced Nigerian workers in public and private employment to the status of modern slaves.
7. NEVER AGAIN!
● We believe that it is the failure of the labour leadership to offer stout resistance to the brutally anti-worker and anti-poor economic and social policies of the outgoing Buhari government that has contributed to the current situation whereby the government just imposes any criminal policy that suits its fancy.
● At the moment, such criminal policies include the scarcity of fuel and increase in fuel price as well as shortage of naira notes. No doubt, these criminal policies have disrupted the lives and livelihood of Nigerians including workers for weeks now without any bold response from the leadership of the NLC.
● Instead, a recent media publication reported NLC of stating that the “NLC cannot call a strike over the ensuing national crisis but rather Nigerian people should obtain their PVC to vote in the next election. We in JAF belief that such a response is a deviation from the rich and enviable tradition and philosophy of Nigeria’s labour movement which does not refrain from struggling on any policy that affects the lives and livelihood of the working people.
● Nigerian workers must reject this kind of “I don care” attitude from the leadership of the movement – the trade union movement. Trade unions are created primarily to defend the economic interest of their members. For a trade union centre to be silent at this crucial period when workers are suffering due to lack of naira notes and fuel is to betray the economic and class interest of the working class at a most crucial time.
It is therefore the duty of Nigerian workers to ensure that this kind of “I don care” attitude and approach does not find its way into the NLC again. Workers must ensure that they support and elect only leaders with a track record of struggle and a programme to use their offices people and the poor in general; to defend their members as well as working Workers must also ensure that they rebuild their union and the labour movement on a democratic basis in order to ensure that it does not become a platform for the servicing of the narrow interest of some bureaucrats instead of serving as a platform for defending the interest of members.
8. TASKS FOR A NEW NLC LEADERSHIP
● While congratulating in advance those who are likely to emerge as new national officers of the NLC via this delegate conference, we of the Joint Action Front (JAF) hereby urge them to be prepared for principled struggle for ideological repositioning of the Labour movement.
Those coming into office at this critical period in the life of our country have to offer courageous leadership and preparedness to struggle. This is because Nigeria is entering a period of social convulsion and storm.
● The unfolding global capitalist economic crises and rising geopolitical tensions and wars will continue to impact on Nigeria’s economy negatively thereby providing a pretext for whichever government that emerges from the 2023 general elections to implement neo-liberal and anti-poor social and economic policies that will worsen the living condition of workers and the oppressed masses.
Therefore, a new NLC leadership emerging at this period can only hope to succeed if it is prepared to lead a serious fight back to defend the class interest of Nigerian workers and oppressed masses and also fight for system change.
● In conclusion, JAF pledges its fraternal solidarity and preparedness to collaborate with the new leadership to jointly prosecute mass struggles to defend the interest of workers, youth and oppressed masses.
The restoration of the Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO) to serve as the general staff of the mass struggles that impend is a good way to begin to rekindle the fraternal relationship between our forces and the NLC at this crucial time.
Once again, we salute Nigerian workers and the labour movement on the occasion of the 13th National Delegate Conference (NDC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
● For REAL CHANGE and socio-economic transformation, of our society, we need is what in JAF, we have since inauguration in 2005 defined as: “Nigeria is rich. The wealth belongs to the peopl For e. Most Nigerians are hungry, have no jobs, no education, no healthcare, no potable water, no electricity supply and no affordable transportation. Most cannot feed their families or educate their children.
Those who are lucky to have jobs are not much different. They also cannot afford a decent living for their families. On the other hand, there is a very tiny group of Nigerians who have cornered the wealth that belong to the working people and the poor, who are in the majority.
They loot the treasury and use their stolen wealth to sustain themselves in power through their political parties.
They use their power to get richer and richer when the poor get poorer and poorer. This is the system of exploitation and oppression. It is the system that brings out the army and the police to kill poor people when they protest against oppression and exploitation.
We want to change that system and replace it with a system where the working people and the millions of people who are sufferings under the system of exploitation will win power and ensure that the wealth of Nigeria is used to ensure a good life for the majority of the people who are now exploited and oppressed. System change is not replacing one exploiter’s government by another exploiter’s government.
It is replacing an exploiter’s government by a people’s government to reorganise Nigeria and put an end to exploitation and oppression!
