Protesting workers from Nigeria’s South East and the South-South regions have called for the postponement of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) elections scheduled to hold tomorrow due to what they termed marginalization of their members.
The NLC had last month fixed Thursday’s date for its election at the Eagle Square Abuja following a botched attempt February 11, at the International Conference Centre Abuja, after ballot boxes were destroyed on claims of attempted rigging.
Comrade Osmond Ugwu of the Nigeria Civil Service Union (NCSU), Enugu State chapter, who spoke on behalf of over 100 placard wielding protesters at the Labour House Abuja, chided NCSU national headquarters for giving just two slots of 131 delegates’ slots to the two regions for Thursday’s elections.
Ugwu also lamented that not more than five delegates were chosen from the Enugu State in the south east by the national headquarters of the Medical and Health Workers Union (MHWUN) out of 527 to participate in the voting.
He said “we have two demands; NLC should re-schedule the elections and address these grievances, there must be fair distribution of delegates. If not, we are ready to battle, just as we battled and stopped the last elections, just like we disrupted the last one.
“MHWUN had over 500 delegates, but only five persons from Enugu…if we don’t do this right, we cannot question our democracy. NLC does not belong to anybody, all of us are stakeholders. NLC and its leadership must be called to order.
Addressing the protesters, General Secretary of the NLC Comrade Peter Ozo-Eson said the elections would go ahead as planned, stressing that the congress would not be held to ransom.
“Let me clearly state that this is a sad day in the life of the NLC. We pride ourselves as a pan-national movement, we have never heard of zone this, zone that, and this is not the first time the NLC is conducting elections. The people that have brought the congress into disrepute, history will judge them appropriately,” Ozo-Eson said.
Comrade Ayuba Wabba of MHWUN and the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Workers (NUEE) Comrade Joe Ajaero are the two presidential contestants in the elections.
