Buhari capability to rule doubtful ―NLC

THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has described the Year 2017 as one of the most difficult for most Nigerians in recent history.

Besides, the Congress declared that the capacity of President Muhammadu Buhari to rule and bring a positive change is doubtful.

The President capacity to rule, according to the Congress, has been undermined by the inability of his government to address the infrastructural deficit and other problems.

The NLC gave the damning verdict on the President Buhari and his All Progressive Congress (APC) led government in its New Year Message; signed by its President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba.

However, Wabba, commended and congratulated Nigerian working people and pensioners for their resilience in surviving and pulling through the year 2017.

The NLC president said: “On behalf of the National Executive Council of the Nigeria Labour Congress, I wish to congratulate Nigerian working people and pensioners for their resilience in surviving and pulling through the year 2017, which proved to be one of the most difficult for most Nigerians in recent history.

“The previous year saw the working people, pensioners and other Nigerians facing series of daunting socio-economic and security challenges, even though we had hoped that the year would offer succour for the masses of the people.”

On the capacity of President Buhari in governance, Wabba said: “For us in the Congress, and for majority of working people in Nigeria, the hope placed on the capacity of President Buhari to bring about positive change is being undermined by his government’s inability to address the infrastructural deficit and other related problems in the oil industry, such as making our existing refineries work at optimal capacity by refining products for domestic consumption.”

He, however, vowed that the organised labour shall hold the government accountable in the New Year.

On the socio-economic situation, Wabba stated that the deplorable economic situation in the outgone year was aptly captured by the statistics recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) which indicated that over 4 million Nigerians lost their jobs in 2017.

“Against the background of the campaign promise of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government to create three million jobs annually, this statistics from the NBS underscores the grave and depressing situation of the Nigerian economic landscape in 2017.

“Rather than work to create jobs and improve the condition of Nigerian working people and Nigerians in general, leading elements in the ruling APC government, like Governor Nasir el-Rufai, have been taking measures to further chastise and ruin Nigerians by throwing tens of thousands of workers into the already saturated unemployment market and wretchedness,” Wabba said.

He added: “In the same vein, despite the huge revenue that the States have received through the Federal Government intervention funds to clear arrears of unpaid salaries and pensions in many states of the federation, coupled with additional payment of three tranches of windfall, (Paris Club debt refunds), states like Kogi, Osun, Benue, Ekiti, Bayelsa and several others entered 2018 with huge arrears spanning up to ten (10) or more months of wages and pensions.

“Under these conditions, Nigerian workers, pensioners and their families remained the most despondent group in an economy that even the well-to-do are groaning and struggling to survive. No wonder,  our country is one of the worst, known for having many hungry people in the world according to the World Hunger Index report 2017.”

He deplored the ongoing fuel scarcity across the country, saying that Nigerians have witnessed one of the worst shortages in the supply of petrol in the history of the country.

This, according to him, is in spite of Federal Government’s repeated claim that with the complete removal of subsidy on petroleum products, scarcity of petroleum products would become a thing of the past.