Workers, activists protest planned Privatisation of PHCN
By Victor Ahiuma-Young & Ikeoye Oyetoro
LAGOS—WORKERS and members of the civil society allies of organised labour, yesterday, paralyzed parts of Lagos as they began a nationwide protest against the privatisation of Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN.
They vowed to shut the sector should government go ahead with the sale.
The workers under the aegis of the National Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Companies, SSAEAC, National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, National Union of Postal and Telecommunication Employees, NUPTE, among others as well a coalition of civil society allies of labour under the platform of Joint Action Forum, JAF, accused some serving government officials and former government officials of scheming to appropriate PHCN for their selfish benefits.
Displaying various anti-government and privatisation placards, the protesters who took off from Yaba office of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, cut off vehicular movement and caused a heavy traffic jam along the busy Muritala Mohammed Way, Idumota, CMS, Marina and other adjoining roads as they marched through.
Leaders of the protesters who included former President of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU and Chairman of JAF, Dr. Dipo Fashina, lamented that Nigeria was going from worse to worst because of political leaders that were bereft of ideas.
He said that yesterday’s protest was just the beginning of a nationwide protest against the planned sale of PHCN and vowed that the protest and mobilisation of Nigerians against planned sale of PHCN would be taken to all the states.
General Secretary of SSAEAC, Comrade Abiodun Ogunsegha, said PHCN workers and their allies had come to a point the battle to ensure that the collective asset of Nigerians such as PHCN was not appropriated by few privileged Nigerians.
He said: “What is happening in PHCN today was caused by those who are now scheming to buy it. It is just the beginning. We should ask what has happened other assets that had been privatized. We all have a stake in PHCN.”
General Secretary of NUEE, Comrade Joe Ajaero, while faulting the planned sale, among others, said: “We are going to shut down if at the end of the protest government refuses to listen to the voice of reason. We will make this a political fight by turning it to civil disobedience.
It is the role of the government, according to the constitution, to provide welfare and other services to the nation and management of the commanding height of the economy. We must ask why government is disregarding the constitution in its privatisation programmes.”
Solidarity protest
Secretary of JAF, Comrade Abiodun Aremu, called on Nigerians to join the progressive forces on the solidarity protest that would kick_start the resistance of the planned hand over of PHCN to private investors.
He said: “Power supply has not been efficient because of corruption. Some contractors were alleged by the House of Representatives to have collected $6.2 billions without executing the project. JAF will on mobilise and organise Nigerians to reject and resist the inimical policy of privatization of PHCN, which has been used in the in the last three decades used by Government to destroy several public enterprises in the country.
“We are against President Jonathan Roadmap on Electricity Power Reform, because it is meant to hand over publicly owned enterprise (PHCN) to some of 20 private power companies that have been issued licenses since 2005, yet none of them has so far, been able to add a single megawatt of electricity to the national grid.
“The goal of government reforms in the power sector is to take over what is currently being generated by the PHCN and hand it over to so_called private investors to re_distribute to those that can afford the high costs.
Since 2005, through the power sector reform, the monopoly of NEPA/PHCN was supposed to have been broken with the unbundling of NEPA into 18 companies to work alongside with PHCN. “
