Amidst growing agitations by workers for wage review to cushion effect of harsh living conditions, constitutional lawyer and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has advised the leadership of the organised Labour to demand the enforcement of some of the social welfare laws that will positively enhance the living conditions of their members.
He said that labour unions should ensure they demand action from government regarding increase in allowances as well the execution of health insurance and mass housing programmes.
Addressing the audience on Tuesday at a symposium in Abuja in honour of Dr. Segun Osoba, Falana said that focusing on minimum wage has often robbed the unions of the opportunity to also seek the enforcement of other social welfare policies and legislations that have been poorly implemented.
He said: “Labour should, beyond asking for improvement in minimum wage, also insist that the National Housing Act which allows the state to deduct three percent from the monthly wages of workers to fund the federal government-backed programme to provide affordable and cheap houses for Nigerians should be used for the benefit of workers.
“Today, government said that estimated 28 million Nigerians have no accommodation talk less of houses of their own,” he said.
Falana also lamented that while pensioners are dying queuing for their pensions, the amount holed up in the pension fund account has hit N30 trillion.
Rather than applying the fund to take care of the entitlement of retirees, Falana said what federal and state governments do is to go and take loans from the pension fund.
One of the contemporaries of the late scholar, Prof. Jibril Ibrahim paid glowing tribute to Osoba, describing him as a dogged fighter for social justice
He said: “Comrade Osoba is best known for the minority report he and Dr. Bala Usman wrote as part of the 49 “wise men” of the Constitution Drafting Committee charged by General Murtala Mohammed to write a new constitution for Nigeria in 1975/76”.
Also, former General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade John Odah, were among labour leaders who paid tribute to their late associate.
Earlier in his remarks on behalf of the Symposium Planning Committee, Mr. Y.ZY A’U, said the symposium, the second in a series, aims at honoring the departed comrade, Dr. Segun Osoba.
He said that the Osoba for Eternity platform is an open space, consisting of members from the Osoba family, members of the Bala Usman Institute, Zaria, members of ASUU, comrades, friends, ex-students, mentees of Osoba, and others who share the ideas and passion of late Dr. Osoba for the social transformation of Nigeria.
“The outcomes of this symposium as well as the earlier one, will be part of a broader book of tributes that will be published in the coming weeks.
“Such a distillation of the array of ideas by eminent speakers today, will serve to illuminate the Nigerian condition, continuing the task that Osoba set for himself and which he discharged with such brilliance and condone.
“It is his endearing deployment of knowledge in the bid to make sense of the challenges of the colonlai state in Nigeria, that has made many us here and many more outside this hall to embrace him as a mentor and teacher,” he said
According to him Osoba lived and struggled, both through the body of his ideas and work as well as his involvement in movement politics, for the emancipation of the poor, the enthronement of social justice and economic transformation of the country.
“The symbolism in the name we have given ourselves, that is Osoba for Eternity, is that unlike the human body which merges back with the earth, ideas are eternal and will continue to resonate with society when they speak to the realities of that society,” he said.
Onyebuchi Ezigbo
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