Friday, March 29, 2024

Military intervention in politics, an anomaly – NLC

In reaction to the allegation of a coup plot by the military in the country, the National President, Nigeria Labour Congress, Ayuba Waba says labour is opposed to any form of military intervention in the politics of the nation. 

This is as he said that the military, with the ongoing corruption probes amongst its leadership, lacks the moral ground to come into governance.


“The damage military rule caused our nation is not only in the realm of our political culture, it deepened and virtually institutionalized corruption in all segments of our national life”. 
“The on-going revelations in the various probes of the military top brass, rubbishes any talk about the illusion of the incorruptibility of the military.

“As some commentators have pointed to the fact that a number of our past military rulers are stupendously rich is a testimony that they indeed appropriated our commonwealth for their individual pockets at the expense of the vast majority of our people”, he said. 

You will recall that the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-General Tukur Burutai, recently disclosed that certain individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed political reasons. 

Comrade Waba in his Democracy Day message pointed out that the underdevelopment of Nigeria’s political culture almost six decades after attaining political independence is largely due to military incursion into Nigeria’s political  arena.

He called on the Chief of Army Staff to go beyond just informing Nigerians and cautioning those trying to derail the nation’s democracy to desist from it, to identify the individuals involved, prosecute them, and if found guilty given the appropriate punishments as deterrent to potentially ambitious adventurers.

Ayuba also urged elected public office holders at all levels of our governance architecture: from local government, to state and federal governments to rededicate themselves and work to make the benefits of democracy reach the masses of the Nigerian population.

He further called on the federal government to use the occasion of the Democracy Day to announce the composition of the tripartite negotiation committee so that workers can negotiate and have a living wage as minimum wage.

“As workers, after over six years of the last salary increment which brought the national minimum wage to N18,000, with the excruciating suffering of our members as a result of galloping inflation caused by the massive increase in the price of petrol, and the massive devaluation of the Naira, our patience has been tested to the limit” he said.  
 

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