Labour movement and anti-corruption crusade

President Buhari’s anti-corruption effort seemed to have got a major boost on Thursday, September 10, as the organised labour, comprising the Nigerian Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, together with their civil society affiliates and other passionate Nigerians staged a nationwide rally against corruption. While calling for the death penalty for corrupt persons, they urged the Federal Government to enact a law making it compulsory for all elected and appointed public officials to declare their assets upon assumption of office.

During the rally tagged “National Rally on Good Governance and Corruption”, the unionists marched colourfully in major cities across Nigeria to condemn what they considered as the high level of corruption and impunity being witnessed in government institutions in the country.

Addressing the mammoth crowd at the National Assembly complex in Abuja, labour union leaders accused the judiciary of aiding and abetting corruption by allegedly shielding corrupt public officials through the grant of perpetual injunctions. A leader of the NLC averred that such orders were a proof of widespread corruption in the judiciary. The unionists therefore threatened that thenceforth, they would invade any court where the judge grants perpetual injunction to frustrate anti-graft agencies from prosecuting corrupt persons. They also called for the review of the laws guiding the conduct of public officers in the country, arguing that the laws of the country as currently coded support corruption.

It is indeed a positive development that the organised labour is visibly showing its support to the anti-corruption war of the current administration. But we hope that this is not just another publicity stunt by the union leaders to burnish its tattered image. The NLC, for instance, has been torn apart by leadership crisis with factions emerging from its recently bungled elections. The infighting, allegations and counter-allegations of bribery, corruption, intimidations and vote-rigging during the elections exposed the underbelly of the union and showed them not to be any different from, or better than, the politicians and power-mongers who have corruptly enriched themselves from the public till and whom the NLC is now pretending to fight. This is besides the severe allegations of corruption and cooptation levelled against the labour union during the 2012 subsidy strikes by its civil society partners.

In truth, the NLC and TUC have long run opaque unions where the only game or activity they engage in beyond the annual Labour Day celebrations is the organisation of strikes actions to protest removal of subsidy on petrol. There were several allegations, and it really did appear that some labour leaders organise these strikes to cut deals with the government in power rather than to champion the cause of the masses.

ASUU, for its part, seems to only spring to action whenever it wants better pay for its members. It has largely kept quiet or has even looked on as its members perpetrate the worst forms of corruption in our ivory towers. Corrupt practices such as admissions racketeering, misapplication and embezzlement of funds, sale of examination questions, inducement to manipulate awards of degrees, direct cheating during examinations, deliberate delays in the release of results, victimisation of students by officials, lack of commitment to work by lecturers, and above all, sexual harassment and exploitation of students by lecturers have become very rampant in our universities. Unwittingly, the universities, rather than being centres for teaching of knowledge and character, have become training and initiation grounds for corruption. Little wonder most of the youth who graduate from the universities these days are thoroughly lacking in character and view engaging in corrupt practices as normal.

We urge the labour unions to first focus on the miasma emanating from their various constituencies and clean them up before facing those of the larger society. We urge them to, as it was prescribed in the holy writ, to first remove the plank from their eyes so that they can see clearly to remove the speck from their neighbour’s eyes. Enough of these publicity stunts and attempts to re-launch themselves into relevance!