Friday, 1 June 2012
Saturday, 26 May 2012
PRESS STATEMENT OUTCOME OF THE DELIBERATIONS OF THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL NAC OF THE NIGERIA LABOUR CONGRESS (NLC) ON 23RD OF MAY 2012
The National Administrative Council NAC of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, comprising of the leadership of Congress met on Wednesday May 23, 2012, and held deliberations on a number of national issues. The following are the outcomes of from the meeting.
CURRENT CHALLENGES
Congress calls all affiliate unions and state councils to remain steadfast in the struggle for total implementation of the new minimum wage in all the states of the Federation.
It also resolved to oppose any increase in energy tariff without improved power supply, while it calls on all affiliate unions to continue the demand for the holistic restructuring of the downstream petroleum sector through building of the new refineries and self sufficiency in products supply. The NLC salutes Mr President’s directive to the Attorney-General of the Federation to prosecute all those found culpable in the recent report of the House of Representatives on the probe of the oil subsidy regime in the country.
The assurance by Mr. President that there will be no sacred cows in the investigation and prosecution of the corruption in the downstream sector of the oil industry is laudable and deserve commendation.
The Nigeria Labour Movement and indeed all Nigerians, look forward to a through and diligent prosecution by the Attorney-General and the security agencies in order to disabuse the minds of the watching public and to ensure that the process is not a hollow ritual. We urge the President to ignore advisers that are determined to set him on an unnecessary collision course with the people over policies that undermine prosperity and worsen the country’s poverty level. Any attempt to contemplate fuel price increase when those who looted the subsidy fund walk around as untouchables will be contemptuous of the people and an invitation to anarchy.
TRADE UNION UNITY
The NLC reaffirms the unity and indivisibility of the Congress and salutes the solidarity of all its affiliates in the face of the current challenges facing workers. Congress, regrettably noted the recent media statement credited to the General Secretary of the Non Academic Staff Union (NASU), Comrade Peters Adeyemi, and the President of the National Union of Hotels and Personal Services Workers (NUHPSW), Comrade Leke Success, purported to be a reaction to a similar regrettable statement purported to be issued by the Congress.
Congress noted that at no time was there a decision to engage any of the affiliate unions of the NLC, including great unions like NASU and (NUHPSW) in unnecessary media exchanges and war of attrition over issues that are purely internal and clearly surmountable.
As a democratic organisation, internal contestations are inevitable. Indeed debates and divergent views are part of the great democratic heritage of the NLC. Therefore, recent discordant voices of some unionists after the last Delegates’ Conference of the NLC are not unusual. It has happened in the past and the NLC has emerged even stronger and better positioned for the defence of workers’ rights. NLC therefore wishes to call all its affiliates to service its unity through its time tested internal democratic structures.
Congress notes that there is no divided labour family as all grievances are surmountable.
Accordingly, NAC urges the leaders of the aggrieved unions in the interest of the Nigerian workers to utilise the conflict resolution mechanism in the Congress and join the Congress in the great indivisible task of defence of workers’ rights.
DEATH AND BURIALS OF COMRADES OLAITAN OYERINDE AND PASCAL BAFYAU
The NLC salutes all affiliates and well wishers of labour for their solidarity after the brutal assignation of Comrade Oyerinde and sudden death of the 3rd President of NLC, Comrade Pascal Bafyau. After due consultations with the family of late Comrade Bafyua, the burial has been fixed for June 23, 2012, at his home town Lamorde in Adamawa state.
Abdulwahed I. Omar
President
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
INVITE TO AN EVENING OF TRIBUTE IN MEMORY OF COMRADE/FRIEND/COLLEAGUE OLAITAN OYERINDE
Dear All,
Please find attached the invite for the evening of tributes in memory of our comrade/friend/colleague, Olaitan Oyerinde. I do not have everyone’s email, so kindly help circulate to those on this list and others who are not. The Collective plans to put the tributes together into a book. As many people as would like are, therefore, encouraged to bring written tributes for the event.
The event will be chaired by Prof. Toye Olorode, University of Abuja.
Financial contributions are welcome. If you are interested in contributing financially to the process, please contact:
Aminu Mahmud (08162491840)
Account details:
Account name: Aminu Mahmud
Bank: GTB
Account No: 0110817427
1. Denja Yakub
2. John Odah
3. Aminu Mahmud
4. Chido Onumah
5. Abdulahi Guroma
6. Didi Adodo
7. Rafsanjani
8. Hon. Bamidele Opeyemi
9. Hon. TJ Yusuf
10. Senator Femi Ojudu
11. Hon. Kingsley Chinda
12. Kayode Opefa
13. Ayo Obe
14. Chinwe Okereke
15. Tony Iyare
16. Dr. Osagie Obayuwana
17. Hon. Abdul Oroh
18. Bamidele Aturu
19. Tunde Aremu
20. Gbenga Olawepo
21. Dr. Chidi Odinkalu
22. Dr. Sam Amadi
23. Oronto Douglas
24. Dr. Ike Okonta
25. Dr. Ogaga Ifowodo
26. Dr. Omolade Adunbi
27. Rev. Fr. John Patrick
28. Dr. Tony Olusanya
29. Tony Iyare
30. Hon. Uche Onyeagucha
31. Dr. Sylvester Odion
32. Nike Ransome-kuti
33. Odia Ofeimun
34. Luke Aghanenu
35. Baba Omojola
36. Rasky
37. Issa Aremu
38. Salisu Mohammed
39. Prof. Toye Olorode
40. Godwin Oyeacholem
41. Hassana Garuba
42. Isaac Osuoka
43. Dr. Festus Iyayi
44. Nnimmo Bassey
45. Dr Joe-Okei Odumakin
46. Yinka Odunmakin
47. Dr. Abayomi Ferreira
48. Femi Falana
49. Femi Aborisade
50. Jiti Ogunye
51. Comfort Idika-Ogunye
52. Bello Aidoloje
53. Dr. Otive Igbuzor
54. Nasir Kura
55. Dr. Kayode Fayemi
56. Wale Adeoye
57. Egghead Odewale
58. YZ Yau
59. Dr. Onoja Adagbo
60. Festus Okoye
61. Fabian Okoye
62. Dr. Kole Shettima
63. Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim
64. Dapo Olorunyomi
65. Hon. Labaran Maku
66. Dr. Hussaini Abdu
67. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN)
68. Jaye Gaskiya
69. Salihu Lukman
70. Doifie Ola
71. Shina Oke
72. Emma Ezeazu
73. Clement Nwankwo
74. Dele Momodu
75. Kayode Komolafe
76. Innocent Chukwuma
77. Mahmud Jega
78. Lanre Ehonwa
79. Chris Nderibe
80. Biodun Oguade
81. Biodun Showuni
82. Louis Odion
83. Gbenga Komolafe
84. Lanre Arogundade
85. Bashiru Ajibola
86. Baba Aye
87. Yemisi Ransome-Kuti
88. Lewis Asubiojo
89. Daniel Onjeh
90. Oladele Hunsu
Dr
94. Femi Obayori
95. Hon. Lukman Afolabi
96. Kayode Ogundamisi
Chido Onumah
Monday, 14 May 2012
THE MURDER OF THE HOPE OF A DECADENT COUNTRY – A Tribute In Memory of Olaitan Oyerinde BY: Denja Yaqub
In his generation, not many stand out like him. He was
honest, intelligent, humble, considerate, committed, loyal, dependable, and
focused.
Born 7th December 1968, he attended Mount Camel
Secondary School, Ilorin, Kwara State College of Technology (now Kwara State
Polytechnic), Ilorin and the University of Lagos where he studied Mass
Communications. He had done courses and attended conferences in several
countries, which equipped him well enough for the challenges of his passion: to
live and work for humanity in the quest for a better society.
He was groomed early enough by his journalist father to read,
work hard, be humble, and concerned about others. He created humor out of
serious situations that could have resulted in scuffles and yet proffered the
best solutions to knotty issues.
He was the author of so many communiqué after several
meetings as a student’s union, trade union and civil society activist. If you
had him in attendance at any meeting, be sure to have the best communiqué that
captures exactly what was collectively agreed as the outcome of the
interactions, even if he disagrees with any part of the discussions.
His father worked as the Ilorin Correspondent of The
Sketch newspaper, now defunct. His father is a realist, professional,
progressive and every bit of him was in his beloved son who didn’t just start
reading newspapers in secondary school but also sold newspapers without
consideration for profit.
Olaitan Kabiru Aremu Oyerinde, until he was assassinated
early Friday, 4th May 2012, was the Deputy General Secretary of the
Nigeria Labour Congress but on leave of absence to work with the immediate past
President of the NLC, now Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as
his Special Adviser (Special Duties) and Principal Private Secretary between
November 2008 and 4th May 2012 when he was gruesomely assassinated
by agents of retrogressive politics right before his young family at about
1.30am that Friday morning.
Before joining the Secretariat of the NLC, Olaitan did his
youth service and eventually worked with the West African Economic Consultants (ECONSULTANTS) as a Research Officer in
1990 and later left to formally join the trade union movement as Assistant
General Secretary of the Iron & Steel Senior Staff Association of Nigeria
(ISSAN). He left ISSAN for the NLC in 2001.
While at the University of Lagos, Olaitan was a rallying
point as the secretary of the radical student movement, the Patriotic Youth
Movement of Nigeria (PYMN), the coordinating organ of all progressive movements
of the Marxist extraction in all tertiary institutions at the time. It was
during this period that the state unleashed severe attacks on the students’
movement nationwide. Students Unions, academic and non academic unions were
ferociously attacked by the General Ibrahim Babangida military regime. But, the
movement under the leadership of people like Olaitan Oyerinde, Gbenga Komolafe,
Gbenga Olawepo, Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, Adewale Bashar, Bode Ojomu, Ogaga
Ifowodo, Bamidele Opeyemi, Bamidele Aturu, Lukman Saliu, Bala Jubril
Mohammed(of blessed memory), Comfort Idika (now Ogunye), Juliet
Affiong-Southey, Chima Ubani (of blessed memory), Segun Jegede, Lanre Ehonwa,
Chris Ndiribe and others, worked with older comrades to resist the attacks and
defended the rights of every Nigerian to education.
The attacks by the military were preparatory to the economic
warfare unleashed on all Nigerians through the Structural Adjustment Programme
(SAP), a neo liberal killer economic policy forced on Nigerians by the
Babangida regime. Indeed, the Babangida regime for whatever reason was one with
the worst anti people policies in the history of Nigeria. His regime downgraded
the national currency. He had a political programme that was designed to
entrench the military perpetually in office. His attack on the academic
community reduced, till this moment, the quality of education in Nigeria.
Radical lecturers were violently thrown out of their quarters because, as the
regime claimed, they were “teaching what they were not paid to teach”. Dr.
Festus Iyayi, as President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU),
Dr. Osagie Obayuwana of the Faculty of Law, University of Benin, Dr. Tunde
Fatunde of the same university all had varying degrees of heartless state
attacks. Festus was not only sacked, he was irresponsibly thrown out of his
official quarters by agents of the regime.
Dr. Patrick Wilmot, a versatile academic at the Political
Science Department of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria was not only arrested
and detained; he was disgustingly thrown off the borders to London, despite
being legally married to a Nigerian.
These attacks predates other more severe attacks on the
socio-economic and political rights of all Nigerians as the regime eventually
rolled out the massively rejected SAP and eventually sank the entire country
into a hollow political fate with the selfish annulment of the 12th
June 1993 Presidential elections.
These events brought out the unequalled qualities in Olaitan
as an astute and energetic organizer, brilliant writer, and selfless leader,
loyal, dependable and a skillful revolutionary machine.
Olaitan was part of several organizations. When the then
Military Governor of Lagos State, Brigadier Raji Rasaki forcefully evicted the
poor from Maroko in favour of the rich in 1988, Olaitan was one of those who
rose to the occasion and got the evacuees organized and fought for an
alternative shelter. When landlords were becoming overbearing against the
rights of tenants in Lagos, Olaitan was among those who formed the Nigerian
Tenants Association to fight for and protect the rights of tenants. When the
Babangida regime imposed SAP on us, Olaitan was on the protest line with us in
1989. When Nigerians had to be mobilized against the entrenchment of military
dictatorship, Olaitan was always on the protest line under the auspices of the
Campaign for Democracy (CD). He was indeed the Chairman of the Lagos State
Branch of CD during the pro democracy protests era. CD worked with several
organizations, including trade unions, to ensure the military never had a space
in their obvious desire to continuously circumscribe our collective rights.
Indeed, Olaitan was not involved in anything unrelated to
organizing for progressive human development. He was frank and brutal in
expressing his opinions on issues passionate to him. He was very humorous at
the right time. At some point, you will feel he could perform better than our
commercial comedians. You will wish him off if your first contact with him was
during one of his humorous moments. His humor was one of those veritable tools
he used to get ordinary people on the street, derisively called “Area Boys” to
understand why only through organized mass protests they will be liberated.
Olaitan’s commitment to work, any productive work- at his
formal workplace or organizing for political change with informal organizations
can never be doubted. He was time conscious and he knew the difference between
play time and when work is on.
Olaitan was passionately kind. He was depersonalized and
detribalized. Even with his Yoruba name and identity, most people who had known
him for decades didn’t know where he came from because it didn’t matter anyway.
The murder of Olaitan is though a devastating loss to the
Nigerian radical movement, but a severe personal loss to me. He was like a
younger brother to me from our first meeting till our last. He stayed with me
during his youth service in Lagos. We worked together at the West African
Economic Consultants (ECONSULTANTS) until 1990.
From our first meeting in 1985
till our last meeting on Monday 30th April 2012 when he last visited
Labour House, Abuja; I saw deep commitment to our collective struggle for a
better world vibrating in him.
His brilliance, patriotism, organizational discipline, hard
work and selfless commitment to our collective desire for human development are
legacies not a few will ever forget. These legacies generated the massive
condemnation and cries that followed the callous and heartless murder of this Youngman
just before his next birthday on 7th of December, when he would have
been 44 years.
He died fighting, as part of a team leading the rescue of a
state abandoned in poverty, maladministration, underdevelopment, and total
infrastructural collapse. Edo State is today better in infrastructures than
when Olaitan and Oshiomhole resumed at the Government House, Benin City. And
perhaps, this may be why he was murdered in cold blood. Olaitan, after all, was
not from anywhere in Edo State. So, they made him the lamb that had to be
slaughtered for their inability to resume the privatization of state resources.
Whoever is connected, even in the remotest way, to the
assassination of Olaitan Oyerinde is today stinking with his blood and will
forever be followed by angry flies while Olaitan remain golden in our hearts
and in history.
We must reinvigorate his memory by refusing to agonize but
deepen our organizing work until victory.
Olaitan was a colleague of inestimable value, an
unforgettable brother, a dependable friend, and a highly committed comrade
whose patriotic zeal will continue to fire our collective commitment until
victory.
Though we miss you, but your spirit and legacies live on.
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