The leadership of the two major labour movements in the country have rejected the recommendations made by the Committee on Devolution of Power at the ongoing National Conference to transfer all labour matters from the exclusive list to the concurrent list.
The two labour unions under auspices of Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress, said in a joint press conference in Abuja on Sunday, that the position of the Committee on the Devolution of Power contradicted the position of the Committee on Civil Society, Labour and Sports, which recommended the retention of all labor matters in the exclusive list.
The Chief Economist of the Trade Union, Dr. Peter Ozo-Esan, who represented the President of the NLC, Mr. Abdulwahed Omar, and the President of the Trade Union Congress, Mr. Bobboi Kaigama, accused the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, of waging a vendetta against labour.
The duo said that Attah took the decision to revisit the issue which had been laid to rest after the last attempt by the Senate to remove labour issues from the exclusive list because of a sympathy strike by a university union in his state over a national issue when he was governor.
“It is indeed surprising that a former state governor who many hitherto have regarded as a statesman, could decend so low as to resort to vendetta because a local union in his state once went on sympathy strike over a national issue,” they said.
Ozo-Esan and Kaigama said that the organised labour would resist any move to destroy the national labour movement insisting that the Attah’s Committee made the inimical recommendation without contacting labour, which was pointed to them.
They said that the time had come for politicians who were bent of drawing the country backwards to be called to order.
The labour leaders said that politicians who contributed to the rot of the country should not be allowed to take actions that could threaten the continuing existence of the country.
“Those who have contributed to the rot of the past that has brought the country to the sorry state where it’s today should not be allowed to mislead the country into disintegration,” they said.
