Labour resurrects at confab

NLC president, Comrade Abdulwahid Omar and others at the press conference, yesterday

Nigerians who believed that the labour movement had gone to permanent sleep were in for a shocker yesterday when the top hierarchy of the labour movement at the conference surfaced.
The manifestation of the labour leadership was, however, not in connection with any issue affecting the working class, but in connection with the appointment of chairmen and deputy chairmen of committees.

Addressing journalists yesterday, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Comrade Abdulwahid Omar accused the leadership of the conference of manipulating the conference to foist its choice men as chairmen and deputies of the proposed committees of the conference.
The allegation was against the background of the earlier agreement by the conference that delegates nominated to committees would choose their chairman and deputy. That agreement was reportedly upturned by the committee of 50 Wise Men chosen by Chairman Kutigi to advice him on the voting benchmark.
Flanked by representatives of some trade union groups at the conference, Omar fumed that a protest letter from organized labour on the issue was not read out by the chairman. “The decision for committees to select/elect their officers was validly and unanimously arrived at on 24th March, 2014 and ought not to be changed without recourse to the general house.
“The committee of 50 acted in violation of their brief since their mandate was to determine what should constitute a majority vote in the absence of a consensus and not to do other things. Yet, the same committee acting, in concert with the conference leadership, reversed the decision on the election or selection of committee chairmen and their deputies.
“The committee’s recommendations on the issue of presiding officers of the committees therefore cannot, and should not, stand.
“This scenario of a few privileged people tinkering with the decision of a whole House is nothing but dictatorship and tyranny of a few. If it is allowed to stand, it may become a feature of the conference. One of the reasons for convening this conference is to deepen democracy and not to reinforce impunity.
“The reversal of the right of the committees to elect/select their officers directly is an affront to democracy as well as a violation of the right of delegates to freely choose their presiding officers.
“We must warn that this seemingly innocuous act sends out dangerous signals and is capable of raising credibility issues in subsequent decisions.”
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