The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has waded into the on-going battle between the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and the National Assembly over the passage of the controversial Ports and Harbour Authority Bill.
President of the NLC; Comrade Ayuba Waba has also described the Harbours Bill as one driven by greed from politicians with negative implication of throwing large number of Nigerian maritime workers into the unemployment market .
Leading top executives of the NLC to the National Secretariat of MWUN in Apapa yesterday, Waba noted that the Harbours Bill if passed into law would be a repetition of the port concession exercise of 2016 which he described as a failure so far.
He argued that concession of harbours functions of the Nigerian Ports Authority to private hands portends negative effects for the Nigerian economy, portends grave national security risk and tantamount to loss of national pride.
He said already, NLC has taken over the fight and that it has scheduled a meeting with the promoters of the bill. He vowed that if the lawmakers fail to kill the bill, workers all over the country would stage a protest to the National Assembly.
He commended the MWUN, saying that compared to previous years, peace and stability has finally returned to the fold of maritime workers.
Waba said: "Management of our port is about national security, if you take away the responsibility of NPA now and put it into wrong hands, now that we have seen arms and ammunitions being imported into this country on daily basis, we are putting the life of Nigerians on the line, I therefore urge government to look at this scenario"
"Secondly, the economic well-being of the workers would be tampered with because the services the bill seeks to outsource is being paid in dollars, this supposed to go into federated account so it is economic sabotage"
"We are going to partner with you to address this issue and see how best we can salvage the issue, I am aware it has gone far at the Senate and I have also spoken with the sponsor of the bill and he has agreed for a meeting"
"We would try to make them understand and see reason, but in any event that they fail to see reason, we would have a cause to mobilise ourselves to the National Assembly so that they can hear the cry of Nigerians and cry of families of maritime worker" He said
He said that port privatisation and concession has not added any tremendous value to the Nigerian system, rather it has put resources only in the hands of few which, according to him, is not to the benefit of Nigerians.
Speaking earlier, President General of Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN); Comrade Adewale Adeyanju reiterated that if allowed to scale through, the Port and Harbours Bill would lead to job loss for maritime workers.
He described it as an obnoxious bill, even as he expressed faith in the leadership of the NLC to fight the bill.
He assured that the MWUN would never derail but continue to support the leadership of the NLC. He noted however that having division in the fold of the NLC is creating a lot of concerns to maritime workers. He charged the Ayuba Waba led executives to bring together the other factions.
"The Port and Harbour bill has negative effect on our members and we are begging you to ensure that this bill does not have headway"
"As Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria, we remain solidly behind the NLC and we would not deviate"
Adeyanju also highlighted other challenges confronting the MWUN which according to him includes the poor access roads to the port.
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