VON DG Appeals To Labour To Shelve Plans For Strike Action
Founding member of All Progressives Congress, APC, and Director General of Voice of Nigeria, VON, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has enjoined the leadership of labour unions to shelve all plans for strike action.
Okechukwu urged the labour leaders to instead support President Bola Tinubu to Bail-Us-Out from the economic stranglehold of 1% Class of deep pockets.
He was reacting to President Tinubu’s National Broadcast on Monday.
VON’s DG agreed with the President that the nation was in dire need of bailing the citizens out from the stranglehold of the 1% Class that has been feeding fat on petroleum subsidy and the multi-forex market.
While noting that President Tinubu could be ranked among the rich class, the DG VON said that “the President is well-heeled to wage this Herculean War, which amounts to class suicide for the collective interest of our dear fatherland.”
Going down memory lane, Okechukwu stated; “There is a national consensus after we lost the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) battle of 1986, by all and sundry and all the presidential candidates on the imperative to remove fuel subsidy and reinforce uniform foreign exchange rate.
“To me, the strike may not achieve the desired result of addressing gross inequality in the land, since there is no better alternative to the short-term palliatives on the table, urgently fixing the country’s four refineries and as well as the implementation of Buhari regime’s Green Imperative Project, aimed at the mechanisation of agriculture nationwide.
“Therefore, since we have regrettably succumbed to the nebulous SAP economic policy the only viable option left is to collectively and pragmatically join Mr President to recover lost grounds and for him to commit class suicide.”
He said he was thrilled listening to Mr. President’s national broadcast, especially his disclosure that,
“The subsidy cost us trillions of Naira yearly. Such a vast sum of money would have been better spent on public transportation, healthcare, schools, housing, and even national security. Instead, it was being funnelled into the deep pockets and lavish bank accounts of a select group of individuals.
“This group had amassed so much wealth and power that they became a serious threat to the fairness of our economy and the integrity of our democratic governance. To be blunt, Nigeria could never become the society it was intended to be as long as such small, powerful yet unelected groups hold enormous influence over our political economy and the institutions that govern it”.
Okechukwu said it was at this point that he came to the inevitable conclusion that Labour needed to calm down to avoid setting Nigeria’s democracy ablaze.
The VON’s DG said that “President Tinubu, being one of this 1% deep pockets; going by the paradox of history, stands in good stead to bail us out of the stranglehold of these unelected individuals wielding enormous influence and posing serious threat to the integrity of our democracy.
“What President Tinubu needs is to unbundle our economy from the hands of rent-takers, which our Constitution frowns at and our support, secondly, genuine advice and thirdly, to mark his bumper to bumper with constructive criticisms on how best to preside over our commonwealth.”
On the observation that there were some missing gaps in Tinubu’s address, Okechukwu said; “To me it is an excellent address in plain and clear language devoid of economic jargons; however the missing gaps are, one, there’s no mention of how to urgently fix our four refineries, as one does not trust that Dangote Refinery.
“Two, no mention was made of the Green Imperative Project (GIP) aimed at Agricultural Mechanisation Programme by the former President Buhari’s administration.”
According to Okechukwu, history has over the years recorded nations where change emanated from unexpected quarters, therefore we should give Mr. President the much-needed support to implement Section 16(2)(c) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which cautioned that, “the economic system is not operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of the group.”
“Without being immodest, with my experience in mass action, the danger of Labour strike is that it may not achieve the desired objective and God forbid, may, unfortunately, drive us from fire to total economic frying pan,” he added.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
