BY  SIMON  EBEGBULEM

BENIN—GOVERNOR Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has urged the representatives of labour movement at the ongoing national conference to speak for Nigeria’s unity and not ethnic agenda as being championed by some representatives at the conference.

Speaking in Benin City, yesterday, when the national leadership of National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Woodwork Workers, paid him a courtesy visit, Oshiomhole said: “The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, must be on the side of the Nigerian nation. It must champion national unity. It must never be apologetic on the position it takes on the side of indivisible, one Nigeria.

“I know for a fact that when the political class assembles to share resources, there is no North, South, East or West. I also know for a fact that when the business class meets at the board meetings of the banks and big businesses and they want to share profits, they share it as if they are from the same womb. They are united by the factor of greed.

“On the other hand, across the North, South, East and West, the ordinary person is united by poverty. People still struggle to have access to pipe-borne water and good education for their children. The elite have chosen the escape route by sending their children to school abroad.

“The implication of the future is clear for the NLC, to organised labour and the progressive segments of the civil society, that the children from villages who don’t have qualified teachers and therefore, cannot pass Mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry, means that children of the poor can never become medical doctors, civil engineers, electrical engineers in this country.”