Mallam Salihu Lukman, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s National Working Committee (NWC), has urged President Bola Tinubu to immediately establish a functional partnership with organised labour to facilitate discussions between the government and the unions.
According to Lukman, organised labour would be interested in numerous policy concerns. It would be polite for them to be informed when new policies are being developed. This would help ease tensions between labour and the APC governments and eliminate the disruptions with strikes.
Lukman, who is also the North-West zonal vice chairman of the party, called for an agreement on a common template between the government and the trade unions to guide dialogues in a statement released on Tuesday in Abuja with the title “Nigerian Democracy and the Challenge of Governance.”
To protect and advance the interests of Nigerian workers, organised labour will find it easier to work with the APC and its governments at all levels than it will for the NLC and its allies to reclaim the Labour Party and use it to support candidates and win elections.
While commending the labour unions for the suspension of nationwide strikes over subsidy removal, Lukman said the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and their partners would have been the first casualty had it been Peter Obi won the last presidential election.
He said: “Good enough, the young government of President Tinubu was able to open negotiations with NLC and TUC and already both NLC and TUC have agreed to suspend their planned strike action. However, beyond the suspension of the planned strike action, APC and the government of President Tinubu must consider developing a functional partnership with organise labour.
“The partnership must be strategic to facilitate consultations between organised labour, APC as a party and the governments it controls both at federal and state levels. A common template should be agreed upon to guide consultations. Many policy issues organised labour would be interesting and simple courtesy of being in the loop of policy design would help reduce frictions and tension between labour and APC governments and eliminate distractions that come with strikes.
Some claim that the Labour Party has already been registered with the NLC. The truth is that NLC has long since lost the Labour Party. The corrupt Labour Party of today is not the Labour Party that the NLC envisioned in 2002. The NLC’s aim for the Labour Party in 2002 was for it to be led by individuals committed to the interests of the Nigerian working class. For quite some time, the Labour Party has served as politics’ version of the stock market, allowing anyone who wants to run for office to do so as long as they have the means.
“The reality is that the highest bidder wins the ticket of the party. This is what produced Mr Peter Obi as the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 elections. NLC and all their partners had no say in the emergence of Mr. Obi, and if he had won the election, NLC and their partners would have been the first casualties.
“Besides, NLC and TUC need to come to terms with the fact that they must relate with the government of the day to promote and defend the interests of Nigerian workers. They must relate with the federal government both as a sovereign authority and as the largest employer of labour, irrespective of the party in power.”
The APC chieftain believed that once the negotiation is limited to getting organised labour to accept the new policy of withdrawal of fuel subsidy without contracting a partnership agreement with organised labour aimed at securing a functional relationship to negotiate the rollout of difficult policies, which would be considered necessary to move Nigeria forward, the old distractions of managing strike actions by organised labour would continue.
“Developing a functional partnership relationship with organised labour and other groups requires deeper political reforms in the country. To achieve that would also demand more focus on reforming the APC as a political party, which may have to compel President Tinubu to ask the APC leadership to organise the midterm National Convention earlier than scheduled.
“Some of the changes for instance required to bring about new leadership who could lead the party to achieve its vision of being a progressive party can only be decided by the National Convention. If, for instance, the party want to correct the problem of having reactionaries and conservative leaders such as Sen. Adamu and Sen. Omisore leading the party, organising a mid-term convention is necessary and compelling.
“The earlier this is done, the better for the young government of President Tinubu especially if he wants to run a progressive federal government, one that can guarantee the participation by Nigerians represented by their organised groups in his government as provided by the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended.”
