Implement 2014 National confab report, Labour tasks Buhari

As controversy rages over the 2014 National Conference report, organized labour has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to be statesmanlike and pragmatic in accepting the principles in the report for implementation while fine-tuning the detailed policies/findings for national development.

Speaking through the General Secretary of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria, NUTGTWN, Mr. Issa Aremu, Labour blamed Nigeria’s woes on absence of “development agenda”, urging the presidency to go back in time and look at past reports of Visions 2010, 2020 and consolidate them with 2014 National Conference report.

Aremu, who is also the Chairman of IndustriALL Global Union, Africa region, contended that governance should move beyond the “present adhockism to informed policy choices and implementations strategies”.

While speaking at a career development and mentoring lecture organized by S.M.I.L.E.S (Sending Message by Impacting Lives with Enabling Support) youth initiative held at Zamani College Malali, Kaduna, Aremu said Nigeria could not engage meaningfully with countries like China which had sustainable development agenda without its own development agenda, insisting: “Development does not come through friendship but self national interests in national plans.”

According to him: “China engages with Africa within the context of its 13th Five-Year Plan 2016-2020 for Economic and Social Development. Buhariconomics must also be rooted in consolidated Visions 2010, 2020 and reports of 2014 National Conference.”

On the current face off between the Presidency and the National Assembly, he said: “Watching the presidency and the National Assembly leadership in recent times exchanging star-words on who is right or wrong over critical issues of probity and accountability cases already in the courts of law is disheartening. There must be cooperation between the presidency and the National Assembly members in the interest of the nation. Both arms of government must learn to be less hard on themselves but be hard on the national problems that include perennial shortage of electricity, low capacity utilization, falling Naira value, insecurity, entrenched corruption and worsening poverty. Nigerians voted for change from underdevelopment to development not exchanges of “bad mouths” between the executive and the legislators.”