The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) have pledged to support and campaign to ensure that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, emerges the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
The leaders of the NLC and TUC made the pledge in separate addresses in Abuja on Tuesday.
The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba spoke during the 10th Memorial Lecture in honour of late Pascal Bafyau, while the TUC President, Quadri Olaleye, spoke at the union’s secretariat in Abuja.
Speaking, Wabba described Obi as one among the finest Nigerians and the first presidential candidate of the Labour Party to be recognised by the labour centre.
He stated that the NLC is solidly behind Labour Party and would fully mobilise to ensure the victory of the party in 2023.
The NLC President added that workers’ unions had realised that strikes and protests alone could not change the narratives in Nigeria, especially in regard to workers’ welfare and fair treatment of the working people.
“Labour must venture fully into politics and work hard to support candidates whose mantra will make life better for their members and Nigerians at large,” Wabba stated.
On his part, the TUC President said Obi is a face among the presidential candidates all labour unions are pleased with and are ready to work with.
Olaleye said the entire labour movement has accepted, adopted and would support, and ensure workers massively vote for him in the 2023 presidential election.
“The Labour Party is stronger, one and formidable and the party has a widespread structure, as there is a worker and a member of either TUC or NLC in every family across Nigeria.”
He stressed that Labour Party “is the only party for Nigerian workers”.
In his address, Peter Obi said his visit to the leadership of the two labour unions was not to campaign but for a courtesy call to honour the organised labour on whose party and interest he was seeking Nigerians’ votes in the 2023 general election.
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Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, said: “My commitment is to move Nigeria from consumption to production and you cannot talk about production without labour.
“Labour is the engine of production, capital and machine can do anything but labour is what makes it work.
”Because labour is the greatest contributor to production, it has to be properly remunerated.
“I do not need to tell you how bad things are in this country today. If you are on wages, today Nigerians spend 100 per cent of their wages on just feeding.
”So many don’t even know where their next meal will come from. They pay to train their children only for them to finish school and stay at home without work.
“Nobody can be president without sitting down with labour organisations to decide the future of Nigeria.”
He further stated that Nigerians would no longer have a situation where the leaders would be here and workers would be there, saying: “They must sit on the same table and talk.
“That is the beginning of the solution; that is what is happening all over the world.
“Nigeria is not a producing country. The collective effect of what we are suffering today is bad leadership.
“We have a leadership that concentrates on sharing. So you have to move from sharing formula to production formula.
“This is a country of 200 million people sitting on 923,000 square kilometres of land. They cannot feed themselves, they cannot export anything. Total Nigeria’s export including oil is under two billion dollars for 200 million population.
”A similar country, not a first world country, one with the same trajectory as Nigeria in the year 2000, Vietnam, sitting on 331,000 square kilometres of land, a third of Nigeria’s land space and 100 million population, with half of Nigeria’s population, their total earnings last year was 312 billion dollars,” Obi said.
The former governor, however, noted that more than half of the country’s youths of productive age were unemployed, adding: “This is what the Labour Party is seeking to sit down to discuss for the future of our country.”
Obi said borrowing was not the problem of the country as other countries were also borrowing to support their economic development drive.
“If you borrow for consumption, you are in problem but if you borrow for production, you will progress,” he stated.
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