As the date for this year’s May Day celebration draws near, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has decried the lingering insecurity in the country as well as rising level of poverty.
The celebration for this year’s event is also expected to hold under tight security as the NLC has advised intending participants to leave their bags at home or in their cars, even as vehicles would be parked at least 200 metres away from the venue.
The union noted that this year’s event is coming on the heels of resurgent activities of terrorists, urging government to take measures to end the siege.
NLC Vice President, Comrade Lucy Offiong, who is the chairperson of the 2014 May Day committee, made this known while speaking with reporters in Abuja.
According to her, the theme for this year’s event has been, tagged “Building Enduring Peace and Unity: Panacea for Sustainable National Development”.
President Goodluck Jonathan, members of his cabinet as well as senate president and members of the diplomatic community are expected to grace this year’s occasion.
She said: “We intend to use this occasion to re-commit the labour movement in Nigeria to our collective desire for peace and unity without which our search for sustainable development will remain elusive.
“Also we hope to use the May Day to reiterate our position that there is an intrinsic link between prevailing insecurity and poverty which has been engendered by corruption, mismanagement of the economy by rapacious greed of the ruling class who have continued to churn out policies in the interest of capital to the detriments of the interest of the working people and other poor Nigerians. There is need to recognise the significance of shared prosperity as a basis for enduring peace and sustainable national development”.
Speaking further on the prevailing security challenges in the country, Comrade Offiong said, “Everyone must feel obliged to render any kind of assistance to security kind of assistance to security agencies that will lead to the apprehension of those responsible for these attacks by monitoring our neighborhoods at home, at work and even the roads”.
The umbrella body for Nigerian workers also tasked security agencies to do all they can to ensure that all the female students abducted from Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State by insurgents, are rescued and returned to their parents.
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