By Williams Anuku, Abuja
Ayuba Wabba, President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), on Thursday, accused state governors of planning to reap where they did not sow, insisting that no dime from the pension funds would be given out to them.
Wabba said this against the backdrop of plans by the 36 state governors to approach the pension funds administrator to borrow at least N17trillion to settle outstanding wage bills, in view of the recession the country recently plunged into.
He made the comments as a special guest at the 47th National Executive Council meeting of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, taking place in Abuja.
According to the NLC President, it is unconstitutional and unimaginable for governors to contemplate going to access money, which is in form of savings account of Nigerian workers without their authorisation.
He said, “We are waiting for them, just imagine you have a savings account and somebody, an outsider will just come and collect money from your account, it is not done anywhere, we would never accept it.
“We should be ready, whenever the leadership of NLC will call you out to protest because we will use the last blood in our veins to protest our savings”.
Recall that while the Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project SERAP had asked President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the governors from borrowing the money, the idea to approach the pension funds managers was reached at the National Economic Council meeting, where Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai serves as Adhoc Committee Chairman.
Meanwhile, Biobelemoye Joy Josiah, President of Medical and Health Workers Union, has called for economic restructuring, rather than dissipating energy on the amalgamation and political structuring of Nigeria.
According to MHWUN, that a hundred years after amalgamation and sixty years after independence, Nigerians are still grappling with the intricacies of how to live together, is quite a misnomer.
His words, “As a union, we believe rather than tackling settled issues, we should concern ourselves with how to come out of the structural gridlock that bad leadership has thrown the country into and instead restructure the nation’s economy so that the potentials that abound in the country could be realized and subsequently set us on a path of wealth generation and job creation.
“I, therefore, feel the recurring calls for restructuring should be clearly defined and aligned from a development point of view and the attendant benefits to the country.
“It should be centred around the ambition of stimulating economic activities to improve the wellbeing of Nigerians, it should also be about how to make every part of the country to get involved in productive economic activities and generate wealth to our people. It is all about equity, justice, fair and equitable dealing in marshalling out the dividends of democracy”.