Labour faults Obasanjo over failure allegation against Buhari

From Femi Oyelola Kaduna

The Organized Labour has said it will work for a successful Nigeria through good governance, rather than alluding to the alleged failure of the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari as recently credited to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The Secretary-General of National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGWN), Comrade Issa Aremu stated this in a press statement made available to the media in Kaduna today.

According to him, the Organized labour cannot afford the luxury of diatribes between serving and former leaders about which leader is successful or not.

Aremu who is also a National Executive member (NEC) of Nigeria Labour Congress, said organized labour derive no pleasure in celebrating allege failure of the President, governors, legislators or even local government chairmen.

“Labour is more concerned about the success of Nigeria as a prosperous, just and fair Republic.  We are eager to celebrate Nigeria’s success and good governance.

“The personalization of governance discourse as promoted by former President Obasanjo might be sensational or even news worthy but it is not helpful for Nigeria as a developing nation.

“For better, for worse, today Muhammadu Buhari is the President of Nigeria.  As President, his failure is Nigeria’s failure while his success is also Nigeria’s success.

“The truth, however, is that with all the rich endowment of Nigeria and efforts of the successive leaders including past Obasanjo administration Nigeria is far from its potential.

“Few are getting richer, mostly through corruption and non-value adding sharp practices while majority are wallowing in deprivations through mass unemployment and income poverty.

“Labour is not impressed with wars of attrition of militiamen in or out of office.  But Labour is rather concerned with job-led growth and development, decent jobs, productivity, industrialization and good pay for work done.

“However, Buhari must work the talk and translate policies into tangibles with the revival of labour intensive industries like textiles.  The government should also urgently address the issue of new National Minimum Wage before the end of this first quarter,” the statement reads.