The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has vowed to reject any move by the Federal Government to privatize the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), and government-owned hospitals, especially the Federal Medical Centres (FMC).
National President of TUC, Comrade Festus Osifo, who spoke to newsmen in Abuja over the weekend, maintained that Nigerian workers would resist any plan to sell the assets of public-owned establishments.
He said, “It is a no-no to the privatization of the Federal Medical Centers. For us, it is not something that we will tolerate because most of the privatization that has taken place in our dear country has been an exercise where friends of those governments were rewarded.
“In a similar breath, we also say no to the privatization of the Transmission Company of Nigeria because if you have privatized the generation company the GENCOS, you privatized the distribution companies DISCOS, and today they are performing at sub-optimal level, what is the rationale to tell the Nigerian people that you are going ahead also to privatize the Transmission Company of Nigeria?
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“In another related issue, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Pantami, came out and said that they are going to dismantle and strip NIPOST of its assets. TUC wonders why it is that when the government cannot manage a particular establishment, the first thing that they do is strip it of its assets. Who are they going to give these assets to?
“We have been wondering and reject the Minister’s position completely. It is fundamentally not right because NIPOST is a national asset. They should go to different parts of the world and see how the national postal services are managed. In Nigeria, we are quick to strip them of their assets.”
Osifo also alleged that the Federal Ministry of Finance had released N8 billion for the proposed privatisation plan, of which a large part would be given to private companies that would manage the assets.
“We even learnt will that recently, the Ministry of Finance released the sum of 8 billion naira to completely put these assets down and the strip of their relevance and the major points of this money is being given to the companies that will manage those assets and only a paltry sum of about 600 million is being given to Nigeria postal services.
“Why should we be engaging all this in the twilight of this administration? This administration is winding down, in the next few weeks, they are gone. So we hereby call on the government not to disburse that money. They should keep the money and everything intact. When the next administration comes, we will start having deliberations with them.
“If they go ahead, they will have Nigerian workers to contend with because our assets should be our precious jewel. We should do everything possible to protect and make it functional instead of selling them off.”
Commenting on the issues around the transport sector in Lagos, Oyo, and Ekiti states, the TUC asked the state governments to return the parks to the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) in honour of the court order.
“A few months ago, a lot of States, most especially in the southwest, against the law, against regulations, banned the activities of Road Transport Owners Association of Nigeria, an affiliate of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and in doing this, they brought in some touts to start managing the affairs of road transportation in their states. We know that part of the considerations were the elections and their attendant effects.
“We have rejected this before, and we are rejecting it again. We are having these issues in Legos, Oyo, and Ekiti States, and we are saying no to such actions because RTEAN is an establishment of the law, and the law must be respected, and just recently, there was a pronouncement of a court order that the Lagos state government shall return the management of the road transport activities back to RTEAN.
“We hereby enjoin the Lagos state government to immediately implement that court judgment because we are a nation governed by the rule of law.”
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