Despite the bright moves by the administration of President Umaru Yar’adua to tackle the long-term problems of Nigeria, the Nigeria Labour Congress [NLC] declared yesterday that Yar’adua’s administration has deviated from an initial dynamism that it displayed and moved over to a lacklustre performance.
According to comrade Abdulwaheed Ibrahim Omar, president of the NLC, Unlike in countries that are its contemporaries, there is an obvious lack of progress in almost all aspects of Nigerian life. Other countries that started the journey towards nationhood alongside Nigeria have accomplished notable feats in governance based on sound ethics, first class technological and industrial development, excellent infrastructure and high standards of living.
The present government must assure Nigerians that the country is not on autopilot, and added that ‘to aspire to be among the 20 largest economies by the year 2020, the country requires a leadership that is expeditious, dynamic and competent.
The Comrade further added that ‘Even with the best of executive intentions and output, a leadership whose highest virtue is its decidedly unhurried pace, cannot take the nation far enough in the development race. Given its deep crisis, Nigeria needs positive and result-oriented action and policies, particularly on infrastructure, industry and employment creation. The excuse of fine-tuning the Seven Point Agenda two years into the tenure of this government is no longer tenable.’
We the NLC believe that despite the circumstances of emergence of this government, the reality of de facto subsistence requires that it must sit up in relation to the basic challenges of national development.
