By Bukola Adewumi/Joan Nwagwu
A legal icon and human rights activist, Femi Falana (SAN), on Wednesday said the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) should no longer limit its struggle to the issue of minimum wage alone.
Falana said this at the side-line of the NLC at 40 program in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
According to him, it is time for the NLC to get involved in politics and democracy because it is the only union that can fight for the interest of Nigerian workers.
“ The NLC can no longer limit itself to the defence of wages alone, it has to get involved in the issue of politics as it did in the past and intervene politically.’’
He said that NLC and its allies were the only organisations that work in the interest of the common people; no political party appeared to represent the interest of the Nigeria people.
“ The union has over the years fought for the interest of the masses much more than the members of the ruling class of various factions which sold our common patrimonies.
“ The only time you see the ruling class defending the masses is when there was going to be an election and after they won election it is now preservation of the status quo and of imperialism,” he stressed.
According to Falana, the kind of coalition that the former president Obasanjo was advocating cannot emerge from the dominate political parties.
“The NLC has always been the voice of the people and the voice must come back and take its rightful place.
“ NLC must recall the role it played in the time past to fight the colonial regime, NLC must recall that it was the labour movement that fought the military and chased them out of power.
“NLC must also know that it is the only organisation that can defend the people and bring about their freedom.
“I can assure you that the labour movement that will emerge from here will be a new labour movement and not a dumping ground for the ruling class party,” he said.
The activist also said that the celebration of NLC at 40 was a golden opportunity for NLC to review its activities and resolve to seize the initiative from the ruling class.
