The Kaduna State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, on Monday, said the body is foregoing non-partisanship to work with any candidate that is willing to work with it.
The state NLC Chairman, Ayuba Suleiman spoke at an interactive session on workers’ welfare and security with the gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna, Isah Ashiru.
Suleiman stated that the congress had the intention to increase its engagement as well as to sign a charter of demands with the approval of its Contact and Consultative Forum.
“We want to sign an MoU (memorandum of understanding). Not only that, we are deeply convinced we will work with any candidate that we are so convinced will work with us.
“Working in the sense that workers are not to be non-partisan, but this time around we decided to be partisan (sic). We have so many reasons. We decided this time around as a congress to be partisan, to be actively involved in politics,” he said.
The NLC chairman stated that the meeting was the beginning of its interactions with gubernatorial candidates in the state. He however noted that candidates interested in consulting with organised labour in the state must come to the its turf to explain themselves.
“Our intention for this committee and this interaction is not really to interrogate. Although we are in a democracy, I think it would not be out of place if we interrogate you people,” he said.
“But what I mean, in essence, is that we are not interrogating at the start. This gathering today is just the beginning. We wanted to start on a very good note. That is why we are inviting you to our premises, rather than going to your campaign offices.
“And we’ve decided that even if the (All Progressives Congress-led) Government House invites us, we are not going this time around. We will stay in our own house. If you have anything good for us, you come down to our office and talk to us.”
In September, the NLC National President, Ayuba Wabba, vowed to mobilise its members across the 774 local government areas in Nigeria to achieve victory for the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi in next year’s presidential election.
“One issue that we must take very serious is actually conscientising our members and also Nigerians because Nigeria is so much divided along many primordial interests and many interests that are self-centred that we need to address,” Wabba said at the National Retreat of the party in Abuja.
“No country in the world can prosper and work in unity if the country is so divided. So one of the responsibilities of Labour Party is to unite Nigerians along a common goal of development and prosperity.
“Let us organise at all levels. Let us send a message at all levels. I assure you that as Britain did it in 1945 when all the structures were actually won by the Labour Party and recently… Australia also did the same.”