Without NUPENGASSAN, we cannot pay the salary of our President. So, I congratulate Comrade Peter Esele for the leadership he has provided for PENGASSAN and congratulate the executive and members of PENGASSAN for convening your delegates' conference in obedience to the dictates of your constitution.
Comrade Adams Oshiomhole
For many of us in trade union movement, going for convention is a matter we take for granted. We obey our rules, we do not seek extension, we do not play around the rule and we hold our convention in the hall. I have looked at the agenda I saw that you are going to have things like reports from the secretariat in which the leadership will give account of its stewardship over the past few years and you will debate the report.
You will look at the constitution and see whether it requires amendment and democratically decide how and whether it should be amended. You will even have a communique or resolution suggesting that there would be debates on a whole range of issues.
For the representative of the President and myself, I am sure the President would agree that this is not the way politicians do their conventions. Even going round the hall, I have not seen any policeman and I have not seen any armoured vehicle.
When I looked and I saw that one of the items on the agenda too, is also election and I am reassured and I think it is important for our foreign guest to realize that it is possible really for the real Nigerians to organize affairs democratically and look at issues and debate policy options as well as elect leaders without resorting to cutlass and dane gun and that we do not need to deplore a battalion of infantry brigade because people are likely to resort to acid or things like that.
I want to assure you that for Nigeria , the trade union movement represents the school where democracy and democrats abound. If you look at what is going on in Africa where African leaders behave as if whoever is in leadership position owns the country and in a continent in which political leaders subvert their own people's votes.
In a country that celebrates how to undermine the vote of the people, when you as the authentic Nigerians assemble peacefully like this to discuss, to debate and to contest issues, we are teaching politicians that we subscribe to democratic principles and that there is nothing in our star, it is not in our gene to be allergic to those democratic practices that distinguish matured democracies from the one that we are primitively managing in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
For me therefore, the fact of this convention is to be celebrated. I want you to realize that Africa and Africans are in trouble and that we have leaders who have taken over and who have decided to reduce their countries to private mushroom businesses, the same old Oni and Sons Limited. In Zimbabwe , elections have been held, ballot papers have been counted and because Robert must remain in office, the votes have to be counted again and again and again until he wins.
Unfortunately, Nigeria cannot help Zimbabwe because they will laugh at us. In Kenya , the people had to resort to cutlass and thousands of people have been wasted because somebody in Kenya believes that it his birth right to always be president. I think that the most important challenge facing our continent is the incapacity of our people to recognize that when you find yourselves in public office, it is not the same thing as your family business.
You must seize the opportunity and create the enabling environment for citizens to determine what public policies should be, who should lead and for how long? So, I ask you to celebrate that you are teaching politicians that Nigerians are democrats, that we are not allergic to the ballot papers, that were are capable of voting freely and ensuring that the vote counts.
If it is not happening in the political space, it is because Nigerian politicians still have a long way to go. May they learn from your convention. I think this issue is the most single important challenge confronting our country and I think it is also important to point out that conventions are meant as forum to debate policy options and policy judgment.
In Nigeria with all the political parties, maybe with the exception of the Labour party, only the Labour party is probably different, we have never had financial report being discussed. There is no debate on education policy, no debate on health policy, no debate on trade policy and so on.
All we hear is that leaders have been coroneted, whether there should be election or there should be consensus. All the political parties without exception are guilty of this affliction. So when you debate policies, some of you might take it as one of those things because the leadership would have no goal to pursue if targets are not set at a convention such as this.
That is why when I look at the programme of activities and I see all of these items for debates and decisions, I am reassured that there is nothing wrong with my country, there is nothing wrong with my people, if it is not going well, the problem is with the head.
I ask you to look at the challenges that you have set for yourselves few years ago, how far were you able to meet those challenges, what were the difficulties, what are the lessons learnt and above all, what can you do differently so that you can accomplish all of those things which you were not able to accomplish before.
But you must remember that it is not possible to attain 100 percent of what you have set out to do. But it is possible to identify what you were not able to do and to strategize how you can do it better.
I am happy that I saw in the programme on the first page, the Nigerian National Anthem which among other things, says that the labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain.
I am happy to see your past leaders here who worked hard, day and night to develop a solid foundation for your union. Your union is known in history as one of the unions that contributed enormously in the struggle against military dictatorship. You therefore cannot allow your previous efforts to be wasted.
You must therefore devote time to look at the challenges that we face now so that the struggle to build a democratic Nigeria , you would continue to be a major player in that process as you have been over the past few years. I want to appreciate your president for the leadership he has brought to your union. I had the privileged of working with him just before I left the Nigeria Labour Congress when he became the President_General of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC).
I am sure that it goes to your credit, Comrade Peter, that it was through your leadership that the NLC and TUC, after I had left, are able to find a common voice. I have made the point that the challenge of uniting our people (workers) is not at mercy of those in government. Government can plan, plot or un-plot how to divide the working people but the working people will remain united and resolute for as long as they recognize that divided we fall and united we stand.
We have been listening to what is going on in the Power probe and as we listened to the revelations in the National Assembly, I wonder what is going on in your own mind. But some of us are very, very worried that in the twenty first century and Nigeria is hoping to become one of the world 20th largest economies. She is hoping to attain that by importing more generators and producing more diesel oil to run those generators.
The man who proclaimed this vision 2020 just before he was retrenched from power, he was retrenched because he left involuntarily, had the opportunity to take one of the key factors without which no nation can grow without, the power sector. We have seen how money was allocated to daughters who have to change their names in order to benefit.
People became Demilola over night instead of being Obasanjo and we have seen how contractors that are not registered were given businesses. Nigerians are indeed a very patient people, that our leaders can speak from the two sides of their mouths, they can ask all of us to tighten our belts only when they have loosened their own, they ask us to make sacrifices so that they can feel the difference.
I feel so sad that for so long our country has been punished with bad leadership. But I have always said that our business is not to resort to lamenting. I want to suggest sir, as your own friend and as your Comrade, that one of your resolutions that you should pass in this forum is that you have no business extracting more crude oil at a 120 dollars per barrel if the proceed would be shared by an irresponsible political leadership. That will not be patriotic.
Therefore, I want to suggest to you that one of your resolutions is that you will join forces with all other Nigerians who have been visited with darkness, whose businesses have been ruined, all those who have been retrenched because of hostile production environment because of the incompetence of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), now that we know who ruined PHCN, I ask us to rise together to devote a day, to join the resolution already passed by the NLC, that Obasanjo must account for the money that was stolen during his tenure.
When I talk like this some people tell me, you know you have a matter in court and you need to talk small, small so that they do not go and block it. But I tell them, the man dies the day he can no longer expresses himself.
This country is being killed by those who were entrusted to manage it and if the only thing I will do before I go under ground is that I join the protest to ask that the man who inflicted so much pains us in name of reforms, the man who asked us to pay a N100 for oil because we needed to make sacrifices, that he was there stealing the difference, to account for his deeds, I will be a happy man.
So, I advise you, as you drill more oil, you must ask the question, what are they doing with the one you have already drilled? You must ask the question.
So, I ask the Minister representing the president, to tell our dear President that he has started very well. He has found courage quietly without making noise and without national broadcast; he has quietly dealt with proven cases of people who had tried to be smart at the ministry of health.
He has also revised a number of decisions that were obviously taken by a President that thought it was his right to rule forever. He has repositioned the country quietly to begin to quietly revised those things that are bad. May God continues to give him courage and let he be rest assured that it is only God who can give man power, not the so-called godfather from Ogun state.
Therefore as long as he commits himself to addressing all those things which were done by his predecessor in order to pull Nigeria on his kneels, not only shall we pray for him, we would stand by him so that together Nigeria must attain its potentials.
Your most sensitive agenda is election. Please remember that angles would not come from heaven to lead. No matter how hard you try, you would not find perfect leaders. But you can find responsible leaders. Leaders who will make honest mistakes from the heart but not the kind of the one Obasanjo made from the head.
Leaders who will appreciate that when they have done wrong that they are humble enough to admit. So, as you go into your election of officials, please be careful. You know when a vehicle is on a high speed and you do not like the driver, you need to know when to change him. But I know you have all the wisdom after all, all the good leaders you had before came from your judgment. That same God will guide you to produce leadership that will continue to carry the flag of PENGASSAN.
*Being speech delivered by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, immediate past President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and Action Congress (AC) gubernatorial Candidate for Edo State recently.
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