A university Don and member of the NLC/ASUU Think-Tank on the economy, Prof. Omotoye Olorode Saturday picked holes in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) recently launched by President Muhammadu Buhari saying the policy was subversive and an affront on section II of the Nigerian constitution.
Speaking at the 2017 Pre- May Day Lecture entitled “Labour Relations in Economic Recession: As Appraisal” jointly organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Prof. Olorode said the document was an extension of the assault formally launched on the nation under military dictatorship in the mid-1980s.
According to him, it is the same policies that have being imposed on the country by neoliberal forces that were replicated in the document which was launched with fanfare by the President, insisting that the document cannot drive the nation’s economic recovery plan.
He said “from President Shehu Shagari’s austerity measures of the early 1980s to SAP, to vision 2010, 2020 and 20-2020 to today’s 2017 ERGP, the commitment of the ruling class has been to neoliberalism-private sector led economy characterized below and enforced overtime by the same personnel.”
Citing part of the ERGP document, he said the document was articulated with the understanding that the role of government in the 21st century must evolve from that if being an omnibus provider of citizens’ needs into a force for eliminating the bottlenecks that impede innovations and market based solution.
Prof, Olorode said the ERGP document was “an unequivocal re-statement of market fundamentalist assault against chapter II of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria, an assault formally launched under military dictatorship in the mid-1980s.
“Nothing in the 2016 Strategic Implementation Plan to which the ERGP referred is new. Consequently, we must reiterate a segment of NLC policy document to show that the class interests of the succession of Nigeria’s ruling class regimes is antagonistic to that if the labouring people.
“Given the continued neglect of education through underfunding and privatization, the claim of ERGP that the plan recognizes the need to leverage Science, Technology and Innovation and build a knowledge based economy is not just only sheer sloganeering, it is a cruel joke.
“In any case, there is already a significant quantum of STI on ground in Nigeria to enable us address Nigeria’s most urgent needs in food production, safe and accessible drinking water, transpiration, energy, security, General education, housing, healthcare delivery and amelioration of environmental degradation.
“It is this neoliberal programmes that the Nigeria ruling class is still peddling with the ERGP and the Nigeria Labour Congress and the entire Labour movement in Nigeria and at the global levels need to combatant in order to outlaw capitalist recession in Nigeria and throughout the world.”
He insisted that the current war against corruption would not make any meaningful impact “as long as the Nigerian ruling class remains committed to private accumulation under new-liberal ideology which typically locates countries like Nigeria at the periphery of global capitalism.”
In his remarks, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba lamented various government policies that has continued to impoverish the Nigerian people, adding that government policies has consistently favored employers against the workers and the Nigerian people.
Wabba said “Today is a day of reflection and a day that we must recognize that no employer of Labour will be so generous to award us what we are demanding for. We have to get it through struggle and this is what we need to reflect on.
“No politician seek office to actually better the lot of the people because they see politics as an investment. So is the issue of businesses around the world which is to make profit and so, we must continue as watchdog of the society continue to represent the interest of our members and the larger people.
“No policy will be made that will serve our interest. That is why our duty has a,ways been policy contestation. Policies must be made to address our developmental challenges and address issues of inequality which has continued to be on the increase despite the fact that in the last one decade, global wealth has continue to increase. We create the wealth of every society, but what has been our bargain.
“Poverty among working class has continued to increase. This year’s May Day calls for us to rededicate ourselves both as members and leaders to our collective struggle and continue to agitate for what is right to our society. There is no way the issue for insecurity will be addressed without addressing the twin issue from poverty and unemployment.”
Wabba lashed out at former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar for opposing the idea of having uniform salary for workers across the country, adding that if political office holders can earn the same salaries irrespective of the resources available in their states, there was no reason why workers should not earn the same salaries across the country.
He said: “in any case, we are not even canvassing for the same salary structure. We are talking of minimum and even in the most capitalist societies, you have minimum which is to protect the vulnerable and it cut across both public and private sector so that we don’t leave it to our respective employers to fix what they want.
“We are saying that we must continue to maintain that minimum whereby no employer should pay below that. Today, even with the law, some employers are still paying below N10000 and that is modern slavery. They will try all means to divide us, but we should not be deterred because a people determined cannot be defeated.”
President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Bobboi Kaigama said countries all over the world have always rejig their economy to make workers the priority of the state when the country is going through hard times, but lamented that the reverse has always been the case in Nigeria.
He said: “We know that globally, countries go through tough times and that is when concerted efforts is made by the government to rejig the economy in such a way that workers are made the priority of the state. But in this country, the reverse is the case. As creators of wealth, we are seen as slaves to our slave masters.
“During this year’s May Day, we intend to show the Nigerian government at all levels our displeasure. In the midst of recession, devaluation of the naira and the high cost of everything, the wage of the Nigerian worker is very constant.
“We must remember that all the 36 states of the federation, except for the first generation states, all other states that followed through memos made it as their number one guarantee that they can pay workers’ salaries from their internally generated revenue. But the same states are the one reneging in the payment of salaries.
“We will not stop calling on the governors that their states cannot pay workers’ salaries to resign because we strongly believe that no state in this country that cannot generate revenue internally to pay salaries except the governor is not serious. We are so lazy that we just sit down and wait for federal allocation while making our internally generated revenue our weekend fund.
“If we continue that way, we will never go anywhere. So, we insist that any state governor that feels they cannot pay workers’ salaries through internally generated revenue should honorably resign because we know that we have the resources.”
