BY TONY EDIKE

ENUGU — Speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Chief Eugene Odoh, said yesterday, that corruption and stealing have assumed an endemic height in the country, noting that the vices had permeated the entire public and private sectors.

Odoh spoke in Enugu during the 2014 Pre-May Day Lecture/Award Ceremony organised by the Trade Union Congress, Enugu State council.

He stated that trade unions as “social partners in national development must lead the crusade for transparent and accountable governance.”

He pointed out that embarking on strikes over disagreement at negotiating tables as a tool to press home some demands for welfare packages for workers was not enough.

His words: “One major role which trade unions need to play which it has been actively shirking in its responsibility is in mobilising Nigerians to fight corruption.

“Today in Nigeria, corruption and stealing have assumed an endemic height and have pervaded all levels of public and private sectors, reaching up to an unprecedented level in incidence and magnitude.

”Trade unions should lead the campaign for probity in public office, ensuring public demonstration of culture of respect for dignity, integrity and transparency so that public officer could resign over public outcry against provable misdemeanour in office as is the practice elsewhere in developed democracies.”

“Trade unions must also seize the initiative to let politicians or political office holders know when to step aside from public office over proved allegation of corrupt practices. Trade unions as a social partner in national development, playing their historic roles properly must lead the crusade to show the way for transparent and accountable governance in Nigeria.

“Calling for strikes over disagreement at negotiating tables or as a tool to press home some demands for welfare packages for workers is not enough”.

He urged the Trade Union Congress to join  Nigeria Labour Congress to form strategic alliance for mutual benefit “with other vibrant segments for the civil society like the student and the human rights groups in the course of fulfilling the immense responsibility to build democracy and consolidate it’s values, principle, process and culture in the land.”

Odoh further stated that trade unions world-wide had always played very important roles and expressed dismay that the overall development and contributions of Trade Unions to national development had most of the time been misunderstood in developing economies, including Nigeria.