By Emeka Mamah & Victor Ahiuma-Young

KADUNA — THE   Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, yesterday, in Kaduna, said the way the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, was handling President Umaru Yar’Adua’s ill-health and the transfer of executive power to the Acting President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, was capable of truncating the nation’s democracy.

Addressing the opening ceremony of an emergency meeting of the NLC’s National Executive Council, NEC, called to examine a recent meeting with Acting President Jonathan on the planned full deregulation of the downstream of the petroleum industry, President of NLC, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, told his audience,  including Governor Namadi Mohammed Sambo of  Kaduna State,  a PDP member, that PDP as a party had failed the country.

Omar argued that it was the view of  Nigerian workers that PDP had failed to live up to expectation at a very crucial time to make sure that the crisis of governance is nipped in the bud.

The NLC President wondered what would have happened had the Acting President who was said to be unaware of President Yar’Adua return to the country, issued a counter order that soldiers that took over Abuja International Airport be flushed out at all cost. According to him, the nation would have been in a deeper crisis.

He, however, commended the council of elders, the Governors’s Forum and the National Assembly for their roles so far in ensuring that the nation was not consumed by  avoidable political crisis.

He noted that since December 2009, NLC had consistently maintained and stressed the need for the nation’s constitution to be followed in the nation’s political challenges that came up as a result of the failure of President Yar’Adua to transfer executive power to the Vice President before he left for his medical attention in Saudi Arabia.

According to him, “NLC notes with concern the role of the PDP in the entire crisis up to this moment as it failed to act and decisively to get Dr. Jonathan, a party member,  to step in as Acting President.

“Clearly, the PDP has  failed the country as a political party which should have internal institutional mechanism to avoid the situation we found ourselves.

“Your excellency (referring to Kaduna State governor),  the decision of the Nigerian workers is that your party has failed to live up to expectation at a very crucial time to make ensure that the crisis of governance is nipped in the bud.”