THE Federation of Informal Workers’ Organization of Nigeria, FIWON, has decried increasing harassment, intimidation,  extortion, and other form of dehumanization of informal workers by government at all levels.

Mr.  Gbenga Komolafe, General Secretary of FIWON, told Saturday Vanguard that  it was alarming that government continually criminalized the conditions which its policy failures, actions or inactions had helped to create in the first instance.

According to him: “The grim reality in Nigeria today is that most people of working age, irrespective of their learning, education and skill, have to find some means of survival in the informal economy which according to the Federal Ministry of Labour now employs a staggering 90% of the working population in Nigeria as factories continue to close down while existing ones operate under capacity.   Ironically, this vast number of Nigerians slaving away in the informal economy are oblivious of the 8-hour working day, secured earning, a minimum working standard etc. This situation can hardly be otherwise as those in government continue to waste scarce public resources on their individual greed.

A cross section of Informal Workers

“While critical public infrastructure such as roads, the railways, education and healthcare services are in a state of disrepair or comatose, we are regaled on a daily basis of stories of individuals who literally pilfered humongous amounts of public funds that should have been used to provide public services and put people to productive employment. As people are forced to endure intolerable working conditions, it is alarming that government continually criminalizes the very conditions which their policy failures, actions or inactions have helped to create in the first instance.”

FIWON scribe was particularly concerned about situation in Lagos State, claiming “it has become fashionable to hound informal workers out of existence with street vendors permanently under siege of a plethora of state police and para- military task forces that subject working people to constant harassment, terrible extortion, jailing, beatings and dehumanization. As work spaces and informal production clusters such as mechanic villages, even well – constructed markets, carpenters and wood workers’ clusters are destroyed to make way for shopping malls and high rise apartment stores which often remain unoccupied and empty, years after construction, informal settlements and housing are also indiscriminately pulled down.