As the country prepares for the 2023 general elections, the quest for good governance and quality political leadership was the crux of this year’s Workers’ Day celebration, otherwise known as May Day.
 
During the celebrations across the federation, labour vowed to pursue vehemently, its charter of demands, by ensuring that a significant number of candidates, who will vie for elective positions in 2023 subscribe to the charter’s provisions.
 
It argued that workers are the most equipped to make the change that the country needed now. 
 
According to labour, “this is because we know what the issues are since the challenges that buffet our country are what we work at daily.”
 
For labour to achieve its plans, it called for collective efforts to ensure workers’ charter of demands is put on the front burner of the 2023 politics.
 
A joint May Day address by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress OF Nigeria (TUC), led by Ayuba Wabba and Quadri Olaleye, respectively, while stating that they had intensified efforts to reposition the Labour Party, said they have also engaged in serious discussions with progressive political parties and groups in Nigeria for the possibility of a grand coalition that would rescue Nigerian masses from the grips of continuous misrule and bad governance that the citizens had been subjected to for a very long time. 
 
Affirming that it could make this happen by mobilising every Nigeria worker and pensioner to get his or her Permanent Voters Card (PVC) ready, it said political leaders by acts of commission and omission, produce the social outcomes of mass retrenchments, indecent wages and pensions, hyper-inflation, a spiralling wave of unemployment, endemic poverty, weak social protection cover, especially with regards to the dearth of quality education, affordable health care and robust physical security.
 
According to them, “workers can no longer afford to play the ostrich, while a section of our professional political class plays roulette with the welfare of workers and destiny of our country. History will be very unkind to us if we continue to stay outside the rings of politics and trust that our placards and protests will change the iron-clad determination of many of our politicians bent on looting, enslaving and leaving in their wake smokes of destitution and despondency. Given the scale of disappointing returns on governance and national development, we must now do the needful.
 
“Instead of engaging the issues of physical security, social protection, decent wages, unemployment and poverty eradication, fixing the economy, our politicians are more interested in the zoning of political offices and threatening the peace of our country, which is already greatly imperiled.    
 
“Clearly, it is a failed political class that would wish to keep the masses, workers and the daily socio-economic struggles we face as footnotes in the 2023 political agenda.
 
“We will be more proactive and pronounced in the daily political undertakings of our country. We will mobilise the Nigerian people to monitor and engage the performance of those we elect into political offices. We will match the performance metrics of the political class against the workers’ charter of demands. Their readings on our scale will determine the swing of the pendulum of the workers’ ballot.
 
“Pursuant to the foregoing, organised labour is energising its structures down to the grassroots. We have established political committees in all the states and local governments of Nigeria. The over 16 million block votes of Nigerian workers, pensioners, our families and our other circles of influence will go to political parties and candidates that assure us that the dreams of Nigerian workers and people would no longer be treated as governance addendum or as objects to be trampled under,” the labour leaders said. 
 
Meanwhile, among other affiliates in their messages to commemorate the May Day celebration, pledged their commitments to be fully involved in next year’s general elections, even as they assured workers of increased welfare packages.
   
A statement by the President and General Secretary of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Festus Osifo and Lumumba Okugbawa, said the theme, “Labour, Politics and the Quest for Good Governance and Development in Nigeria,” underscored the importance of citizens’ participation in politics “and as workers, the time has come for us to get fully involved in the political process. We can no longer complain from the outside as change is most effectively achieved from within. 

The future of our children and unborn generations has been bastardised for too long and we shall take back our nation in 2023, by making sure we interrogate those vying for offices, scrutinise their track records, carry out diligent background checks and more importantly, vote only those with proven capacity, capability, competence and integrity at all levels of government.
 
“It is an accepted fact that whenever the citizens organise, speak up, and engage, they have the potential to hold their leaders and institutions accountable, forcing them to fulfil their electoral promise.”
 
With the difficulties occasioned by the myriad of challenges plaguing the nation, the union was hopeful that things will soon get better.
 
“It is, therefore, very important to encourage one another and maintain a balanced perspective, believing that the challenges that we are dealing with are temporary and we will get through them together and stronger. It is also very pertinent we understand that a better society is achievable only when we decide to actively get involved in the selection process of those in the leadership positions across all levels of government,” the statement said.
 
Similarly, the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria (ASCSN), also in a statement by its President and Secretary-General, Tommy Okon and Alade Lawal, commended its members for their steadfastness, which it said had enabled the association to always overcome organisational challenges whenever they arise. 
 
The leadership of the union assured workers that it is committed to the pursuit of welfare issues including, the restoration of payment of gratuity to public service employees.