The Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC), said it viewed with utmost apprehension the recent call on the Federal Government by some highly placed individuals to sell-off prized national assets, particularly the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) to private entities.
According to NLC, the congress is alarmed at the call, but considered it inconsequential when it was first raised, saying it has now agreed to raise the red flag on the matter and watch events closely as fears by the nation’s worker have now rebounded.
Speaking with Bizwatchnigeria.ng on Monday, NLC Factional President, Mr. Comrade Joe Ajaero, said this call by some individuals for the sale of national assets is highly contemptuous of the Nigerian nation and its suffering masses.
Ajaero said the call seeking to sell the remaining national patrimony is to say the least an attempt to mortgage the collective future of Nigerians in favour of a few economic cannibals and buccaneers, who unconscionably have commandeered the Nigerian state and its levers of power with the hope of using it to hijack national patrimony.
According to the NLC President, “Nigerian workers and masses cannot stand by and watch this group of jobbers whose source and history of wealth is well known to many Nigerians and allow them to further plunge this nation deeper into the mud under the guise of seeking solutions for the perhaps contrived economic recession.
“Those whose actions in the past have all cumulated into the economic mess are now seeking avenues to offload and launder their stolen wealth”.
The labour congress said historically that no nation has had to sell off its treasures as a means of resolving recession, pointing out that a man that trades his house for food will have no place to stay after the hunger is assuaged.
“The idea of selling off assets such as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) and by extension the nation’s holdings in the JVCs, the NLNG, shares in international financial institutions such as ADB and IFC are rather paradoxical.
“It amounts to mortgaging the future of our unborn generation so that few individuals can satisfy their yearnings to control our national patrimony. A sensible nation does not go on chest-thumping trying to sell its cash-cows or its performing assets in times of difficulties. These assets guarantees the nation’s present and future as it provides the much needed resources to continue running the nation”, the congress added.
