BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
THE day was January 7, 2011 and the event was a symposium in honour of the pioneer President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and current General Secretary, Organisation of African Trade Union Unity, OATUU, Comrade Hassan Sunmonu.

The symposium organised by NLC with the theme “Labour of Our Heroes : Rebuilding Nigeria For its Peoples”, and attracted Nigerians from all walks of life.

The occasion which came barley 48 days to March 3, delegates conference of NLC,  provided stakeholders the opportunity to review the role of labour in the socio-economic and political happenings in the country and set agenda for labour ahead of the forthcoming general elections.

Speaking, immediate past President of NLC and Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, told the gathering that Comrade Sunmonu birthday was been celebrated at an interesting time in the history of the country because there was no question that “Nigeria is in trouble right now, because the world believes that Nigeria has become an embarrassment to  the continent and people of the black race.

Nigeria has become an embarrassment to the continent because, even the position we canvass in Cote de Voir (Ivory Coast) is different from what we practice. We have opportunity as a people to decide who govern this country from May 29, 2011. And it is just two moths away. I am clear from my own experience as a labour activist, and even now as a governor, that those resolutions that we passed in situations like this, will go to nothing and will not change Nigeria, because the forces responsible for our under-development, the gross mismanagement of our national assets, the collapse of our nation, the growing state of hopelessness that is enveloping us, the growing culture of impunity where people kill and walk away, all will not disappears because we lament and we pass resolutions to condemn them. Resolutions do not work, but what works,  are men and women, who are ready to stand on their feat and say not to the wolves.

From left, Com. Abdulwahed Omar, President, NLC; Chief Emeka Nwogwu, minister of Labour; Oba Moses Adelani Olabode, Omola of Imala-land; Com. Hassan Sunmonu, celebrant and his wife, Wasilat, cutting the Cake; Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, Osun State, Governor, and Mr. Femi Falana, During Comrade Sunmonu, 70th Birthda. Photo by Bunmi Azeez.

If I can become the Governor of Edo state, any of you can become president of Nigeria. But if we do not to refuse the position that we are inferior or to think that we need all the money available to fight to defeat them, we cannot go forward because Nigeria is bleeding by the minutes. I just want to say to you all in the labour movement that all those things we have been saying that we own the land,  is true. But the land is being manipulated by those who that contributed next to nothing in building this land.”

Lets be soldiers of change

“I ask us to rise on the occasion of Sunmonu birthday to say that we will all be soldiers of change, not by ways of rhetoric but by ways of working and ensuring that Nigeria change because the wolves are not in a hurray to vacate their seats. There is no better time than now for all those that are deprive of good governance to rise up to insist that Nigeria must change because there is enough confusion within the political class, the elites, like they say, when the big fish starts by fishing on the smaller fish, it is a law of nature that when they finish on eating the smaller fish, the big fish must necessary get at each others throat. Right now, the big fishes are at each others throat.

What is your response to that and so you have to serve notice for change and I think this is the moment. My own resolve is that this 2011 is either we make it as a people as a democracy or we do not do so. I told my colleagues in the NLC that for me, if we do not get Nigeria right, wages will never be appropriate because as
you have seen, what is stolen by few will never be available for the majority.”

Speaking, Executive Director, Community Life Project, CLP, Mrs Ngozi Iwere, called on labour movement and civil society sector as major stakeholders in the Nigerian project, to provide leadership in the process of rebuilding Nigeria and ensure that the citizenry was enlightened.

According to her: “The sustained civil and political education of working people in both the formal and informal sector falls within their purview. Unfortunately, not much effort is invested in capacity building of working grass root people. We need a dynamic and political labour movement which is complacent in the exploitation of the working people, and misrule of the country; a labour movement that is not timed or apologetic, one that is willing and committed to linking economics to politics and to organizing and galvanizing the informal sector and workers for rebuilding Nigeria.

Labour needs to be pro-active in checking the excesses of the ruling class, defending the mandate of the people and leading the struggle for ridding Nigeria of the parasitic elite that has colonized the country since that faithful coup de tat of 1966. It needs to move from demanding for “minimum wage” to press for broader socio-economic rights and to insist on an improved minimum standard of living for workers. It is labour’s busin
ess to struggle for good and affordable health care, education, power supply, good roads etc.

Nigerians look up to labour

In his remarks, the celebrant, Comrade Sunmonu, said the greatest gift labour and NLC in particular, could bestow on him was for the movement to be alive in its responsibility to the Nigerian workers and masses.

According to him, many Nigerians look up to Labour for succour and appealed to labour to be more proactive and re-activate its partnership with traditional allies in the civil societies group and the students movement and provide the platform and directives for social change.

Other speakers who spoke in similar vein included Osun State governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Radical Lagos Lawyer and activist, Mr. Femi Falana, Director of International Press Centre, IPC, Mr. Lanre Arogundade, General Secretary of National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN and Vice President of NLC, Comrade Issa Aremu.

In his speech, Minister of Labour, Chief Emeka Wogu, while extolling the virtues of Comrade Sunmonu, said: “ Comrade Sunmonu has been at the forefront of advocacy of an accent African trade union contribution to political  and social economic development.  OATUU under him played a major role  in the transformation of the OAU conference of labour Minister into a tripartite into OAU labour and social commission which has been promoting social economic policy across the continent  of Africa.”

Earlier, President of NLC, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, among others, detailed the role of Comrade Sunmonu in the emergence and development of NLC, declared: “Uniting all industrial unions with different tendencies under one umbrella was no mean achievement especially when the government in power felt threatened. That unity and needed solidarity were part of the legacies which Comrade Sunmonu bequeathed to the Congress when he handed over power as NLC president in March 1984.

Other legacies include the institutionalization of the National Minimum Wage, a guaranteed independence from the federal and state governments, employers and international trade unions centres. The Workers’ Charter Of Demands and a working alliance with students, lecturers and civil society are part of our inheritance from the Sunmonu leadership.”