There are strong indications that, trade union movement in the country would, this year, confront the three tiers of government and other employers of labour over anti-workers and anti-masses activities.
The labour will reject insensitivities of governments to the plight of the people, as well as abuse of workers‘ rights in the private sector.
As a result, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) helmsman said, since ‚our destiny is in our hands,‘ labour will have to meet employers of labour in order to iron out many unfriendly policies.
Similarly, the union who is not satisfied with perceived neglect of revival of the national refineries, would use 2023 to press for revival of the refineries in order to save the country from imported petroleum products.
As Comrade Ayuba Wabba-led NLC will be bowing out this year, the succeeding president is expected to continue from where Wabba may have left it.
Irked by the way and manner of the nation‘s political class have been going for medical tourism at the detriment of reviving the health sector, the next NLC president will focus on health minister and health ministry, as Wabba said: „I extend to the Nigerian working-class, labouring people, and pensioners the warm wishes of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). I congratulate our women, men, youths, public servants, artisans, professionals, traders, students, the unemployed, managers, pensioners, and those in the informal economy for making it to the New Year. Above all, we thank God Almighty for the gift of life to see 2023. „
Lamenting over the none obtaining of set goals in the outgone year, Wabba noted that, parts of the demands in 2022 New Year Message have not been met, Wabba said, in as much as the demands for addressing insecurity, poor funding of educational sector, the increased constriction and criminal obfuscation of access to justice for vulnerable Nigerians and the failure by public authorities and some private sector employers to uphold labour standards and protect workers’ rights, the labour is not ready to fold its arm and do nothing.
It is pleasant goodness that 2023 would commence with Nigeria’s general election which has been scheduled to take place on 25th February 2023 for the presidential and national assembly elections and 11th March 2023 for governorship and state houses of assembly polls.
The health sector will be another area labour leaders will beam their searchlight on.
According to Wabba, available record on health sector very scary. The 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) undertaken by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) with technical support by the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and their partners, revealed acute shortage of Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities all over the country.
In a related media audit of PHCs across the country, it was established that only 6000 out of 30,000 Primary Health Care centres in Nigeria are functional marking 80 per cent dysfunctionality in our primary health services.
Stating that the status of healthcare delivery at the secondary and tertiary levels are also nothing to write home about, he said, many public secondary healthcare facilities in Nigeria have degenerated to mere consulting centres starved of adequate human resourcing for health.
To blame for Nigeria’s worsening health outcomes are poor budgetary allocation which is a dismal far shot from the 15 per cent recommended by the 2021 Abuja Declaration and the tardy oversight by national and state legislature on released votes for the health sector, he said.
The impact of the deterioration of healthcare service delivery, especially where it matters most which is at the primary healthcare level, he added, could be seen in the horrendous outcomes in Nigeria’s basic health indices, promising that the labour will intervene into this quagmire.
„With health statistics, it is clear that Nigeria is off-road in the quest to meet the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on health. With as high as 512 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births against the SDG target of reducing maternal mortality rate to 70 per 100,000 live births, it is very glaring that our political class needs to wake up to genuine commitment and solutions to our health crises. The health of internal security in Nigeria is indeed dire and precarious,“ he pointed out, promising that labour would ensure all stakeholders are alive to their responsibilities in this regards.
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