Worried by the increasing state of insecurity in the country, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) on Thursday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to rejig the current security architecture in the country with the conclusion that the current system has failed the country.
The Congress also concluded that the widening gap in poverty between the rich and the poor in the country and the increasing spate of misgovernance as well as none payment of salaries by state government has been largely responsible for the increase in violent crime of armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom and other vices.
In his message to state Delegates Conference of the Congress, President of Congress, Comrade Ayuba Wabba also warned the government against the planned increased in Value Added Tax (VAT) and adhering to the recommendation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to remove subsidy on petroleum products saying such an exercise would erode the gains of new minimum wage recently signed into law.
Wabba also informed workers that now that the agitation for a new national minimum wage was over, workers should be conscious of the fact the minimum wage is not a gift to them from the government, insisting however that employers of labour should immediately commence the implementation.
He task the leadership of the variously state councils to emerge from the conferences to push for the implementation of the new wage by state government, pointing out that the argument of whether or not states can implement the new wages has been laid to rest.
He said there was the need for state governments across the country to cut down on the cost of governance in their various states to conserve resources for the implementation of the new wage.
He said: “We are all witnesses to the waves of bloodbath and brigandage surfing across our country. There is hardly any day that passes without one incident of armed robbery, kidnap for ransom, militancy or terrorism attack making headlines. We call on government at both federal and state levels to urgently rejig our security architecture, structure, and management.
“Clearly, the current approach has failed. We also call for a robust and sustainable response to renewed security challenges in our country even if that means an increase in the budget for internal security so long it is judiciously and transparently used.
‘The political arena offers one of the most effective spaces for tackling almost all the challenges that we have already highlighted to bring about socio-economic transformation. Unfortunately, the conduct of the last general election left a lot of sour taste in the mouth. Incidences of hate speech, vote buying, ballot box snatching, abuse of provisions for manual accreditation, logistics tardiness, isolated cases of violence, and a spate of inconclusive elections trailed the 2019 general polls.
“These electoral infractions did not only erode some of the grounds won as a result of the push by the NLC and its allies during the 2007-2011 campaign for electoral reform in Nigeria but also presented new threats to efforts to consolidate and deepen our democracy.
“The chaos in our electoral space is only symptomatic of the crises of governance bedeviling our country. We cannot lament forever. The onus is on us as the working class to recover the political initiative through the reactivation and repositioning of the Labour Party.
