The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has joined the Nigerian workers to commemorate this year’s International Workers Day.
The party, in a press statement signed by its National Chairman, Alhaji Falalu Bello, OFR and made available to newsmen in Abuja, urged the workers to build bridges and forge alliances and solidarity with the peasantry, petty producers and other oppressed and exploited classes in the society to take back Nigeria from the clutches of the oligarchs, political adventurers and neo-colonial lackeys.
The full statement reads:
The Peoples Redemption Party [PRP] today, 1st May, 2020 joins the millions of Nigerian Workers, in particular, and the thousands of millions of workers all over the globe, in general, in commemorating this year’s International Workers’ Day.
A product of the Labour Union Movement and its struggles for an eight-hours day, the International Workers’ Day is marked in many countries across the world with matches and parades by workers’ unions and organisations.
In Nigeria, however, this was not the case forty years ago. It was not until 1980 when the two elected Peoples Redemption Party [PRP] Governments in Kaduna and Kano States, during the Second Republic, broke the ice and set into motion a trend which no other tier of government in the Federation could stop, that the International Workers’ Day became officially recognized.
On 1st May, 1980, Governors Balarabe Musa and Abubakar Rimi of Kaduna and Kano States respectively declared May 1st as a public holiday in their respective states to honour the contributions of Nigerian Workers not only in the struggle for Nigeria’s national independence but also to the nation’s economic and social progress.
Thenceforth, the momentum became so irresistible and contagious that by 1981, the following year, the PRP example in Kaduna and Kano States was mimicked not only by the Federal but also by other non-PRP state governments.
WORKERS AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Unfortunately, this year’s May Day commemoration is taking place in very difficult and inauspicious circumstances, not only for Nigerian workers but for workers all over the world, largely as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. This pandemic has resulted [and continues to cause] massive job losses and wage cuts for workers, petty producers and other small-time producers and service providers in Nigeria and across the globe.
But in Nigeria, the situation is particularly pathetic given the pre-existing high unemployment rates, the low levels of slave wages and the near-total absence of unemployment and social security benefits.
As Nigerian workers mark this year’s May Day, they must take time to mull over these dire challenges which stare them in the face directly.
They must strategize creatively to find ways and means of confronting these challenges and fashioning out sustainable and durable exit solutions.
WORKER-FRIENDLY PATRIOTIC FRONTS
The PRP, true to its historic mission and unalloyed commitment to the proletarian reconstruction of Nigeria, believes that the best way forward for the Nigerian Workers Movement, particularly in the present challenging circumstances, is the broadening of the workers’ frontlines through the forging of solidarity fronts between workers’ organisations, professional groups, progressive political parties and other civil society organisations.
Nigeria’s labour union leaders must find ways of linking up with all patriotic individuals and organisations in the ongoing struggle, not only to safeguard the hard-earned achievements of the country’s workers’ movement, but also the present threat to chip away some of these gains – such as wage cuts, and retrenchments without benefits.
Nigerian Workers and their leaders must appreciate the historic limitations of economic struggles and trade union action for just workers’ welfare and combine their efforts with the struggle for political power which ultimately shapes the condition under which workers work and live.
This must entail building bridges and forging alliances and solidarity with the peasantry, petty producers and other oppressed and exploited classes in the society.
Together, in a joint, combined and broad political struggle, we MUST take back Nigeria from the clutches of the oligarchs, political adventurers and neo-colonial lackeys. Nigerian workers did so in the last century under the leadership of such patriotic working class leaders like Chief Michael Imoudu. Nigerian workers can still do it again today.
We salute the courage and sacrifice of the frontline soldiers of the Covid-19 war, the Medical and Health workers and all other workers engaged in providing essential services at the risk of their own safety and health. The Nigerian people thank you for your service.
We call on the Federal Government to ensure the safety and wellbeing of these workers by providing them with the necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and tools that will enhance in the performance of their noble work.
Equally important is the prompt payment of Hazard Allowance as announced by Mr. President in his recent speech.
Happy Workers Day.”