The campaign train of the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Mr. Peter Obi, on Thursday got a boast with the pledge by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress,TUC, to work for the success of Obi’s emergence as president, come 2023.
The two organisations made the pledged to support, campaign and do everything within their powers to ensure that Labour Party’s presidential candidate m, Peter Obi, wins in 2023, at the 10th anniversary lecture in honour of the third President of NLC, the late Pascal Bayau in Abuja.
The NLC and TUC Presidents, Comrade Ayuba Wabba and Quadri Olaleye in their different addresses at the event said Obi is one of the finest Nigerian politicians adding that his candidancy was the first Presidential candidate to be recognised by the Central Labour in recent political history.
Wabba stated that the Congress was solidly behind the Labour Party candidate and would mobilise Nigerians across the country to ensure the victory of the party come 2023 general elections.
According to Wabba, the Workers’ Unions have come to terms that the only way to end strikes and protests, which he said cannot change the narratives in Nigeria, was why the NLC decided to be fully involved in participating in politics.
He disclosed that to achieve that they workers have to work hard to support candidates whose views would make life better for their members and Nigerians at large adding that such were the reasons for supporting Obi’s presidential bids.
On his own, Olaleye added that among all the presidential candidates for the 2023, presidential election, Peter Obi was a face all labour unions are pleased and ready to work with him.
He stressed that the entire labour movement had accepted, adopted and would support, and ensure workers massively votefor him in the 2023 presidential elections.
According to him, the Labour Party is one strong and formidable party.
He said the party had a strong and structure, as there was a worker and a member of either TUC and NLC in every family across Nigeria.
He reinterated the fact that the Labour Party was the only party for Nigerian workers.
The Presidential candidate of LP and former Anambra Governor, Peter Obi, in his response stated that his visit to the leadership of the two labour centres was not to campaign but for a courtesy call.
He disclosed that it’s to honour the Organised Labour on whose party and interest he was seeking Nigerians’ vote in the 2023 general elections.
“My commitment is to move Nigeria from consumption to production and you can’t talk about production without labour.
“Labour is the engine of production, capital and machines can do anything but labour is what makes it work. Because labour is the greatest contributor to production, it has to be properly remunerated.
“I don’t need to tell you how bad things are in this country today. if you are on wages, today Nigerians spend 100 per cent of their wages on just feeding
“So many don’t even know where their next meal will come from. They pay to train their children only for them to finish school and stay at home without work
“These are issues we need to discuss. Nobody can be president without sitting down with the labour organisation to decide the future of Nigeria
“We can no longer have a situation where the leaders are here and workers are there. They must sit on the same table and talk.
“That is the beginning of the solution, that is what is happening all over the world.
“Nigeria is not a producing country. The collective effect of what we are suffering today is bad leadership.
“We have a leadership that concentrates on sharing. So you have to move from sharing formula to production formula
“This is a country of 200 million people sitting on 923,000 square kilometers of land. They can’t feed themselves, they can’t export anything
“Total Nigeria’s export including oil is under $2 billion for 200 million people. A similar country, not a first world country, one with the same trajectory with Nigeria in the year 2000, Vietnam, sitting on 331,000 square kilometers of land, a third of Nigeria’s land space and 100 million population, with half of Nigeria’s population, their total earnings last year was $ 312 billion.” Obi said.
According to Obi, more than half of the country’s youths of productive age were unemployed.
“This is what the Labour Party is seeking to sit down to discuss for the future of our country.” He stated.
