Nigeria Labour Congress urges federal government to secure schools, recover ungoverned areas, and protect students and teachers nationwide.

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said over 2,295 teachers have been killed by Boko Haram and bandits since 2009, while more than 19,000 of them were displaced in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa states.

The labour movement, which held a nationwide protest, suggested 10 measures that could be implemented by the federal government to address the security challenge confronting Nigeria.

Hundreds of workers from affiliate unions of NLC, including Okada (motorcycle) riders thronged the headquarters of the labour movement as early as 7am to commence the protest march around the Federal Secretariat area and the National Assembly complex in Abuja.

Addressing the workers and other stakeholders, Deputy General Secretary of NLC, Ishmail Bello, said the federal government must do something urgently to arrest the growing state of insecurity in the country.

Bello said government must ensure that students and their teachers were protected and schools were secured from attacks by criminals.

He statd, “Students should be protected, that is all we are saying. Our constitution guarantees that. All the government needs to do is to bring all the powers and the machinery of governance to ensure that all the ungoverned spaces in our country are recovered immediately.

“They should ensure that all our schools are protected, so that our children can go back to school. Ensure that everybody who has meted with this undercut the economy are fished out and punished, jailed and sent to prison.”

He said the state of insecurity had negatively affected the economy and social lives of Nigerians. Millions of Nigerians have been displaced from their homes and dislocated from their means of livelihood, he said.

Bello stated, “Many farmers in the country are unable to go to their farms as armed terrorists, bandits and militants have taken over their farmlands.

“Those who can undertake some farming activities do so under a cruel regime of extortion in the form of heavy protection fees to criminals

“Also, affected are medical and health workers, nurses, local government workers, teachers, petty traders etc.”

In suggesting the way forward, NLC said the federal government should try and enforce Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution and make its provisions justiciable.

It called for the convening of a Citizens Dialogue on the Nigeria of our dream, with the outcome informing necessary constitutional and sundry legal framework reforms and adjustments.

Another suggestion was that government should establish a Security Trust Fund at all levels of government and remove every veil of secrecy in the management of security votes.

“The funds should be judiciously used in boosting security intelligence, recruitment and welfare of security personnel and equipping the security sector,” NLC stated.

Other solutions proffered by NLC included setting up of a special fund for the rehabilitation and compensation of citizens, including workers who have suffered from the scourge of insecurity and measures to ensure the reduction of the current inequality gap.

The measures should include progressive taxation and wage justice, it said.

In addition, NLC urged the federal government to implement reforms that will foster a people’s electoral umpire, swift punishment for electoral offenders, and demilitarisation of Nigeria’s elections.

It also sought the establishment of a citizens’ security council at all levels of government with the full involvement of the political class, traditional rulers, trade unions, employers, faith-based groups, and women and youth groups.

NLC further called for accelerated prosecution of persons who had over the years perpetrated corruption in the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy and steered the erosion of public trust in government.

It advocated a comprehensive reform of the judiciary so that it could genuinely serve as the last hope of the common man and a restraint to self-help and anarchy.

NLC stated, “This reform should include an investigation into disobedience of court judgments and orders by the political class. Furthermore, there should be a truth and reconciliation commission to deal with pockets of anger, feelings of injustice and alienation all over Nigeria.

“Finally, we demand the criminalisation of the mis-allocation of security assets, including security personnel to persons and purposes not prescribed by the constitution.

“Immediate deployment of security protection in all public spaces.”

NLC also said given the role of socio-economic injustices in the scourge of insecurity in the country, it would be reasonable to declare a short period of amnesty for all criminal elements across the country to surrender their arms and be rehabilitated to live a normal civil life. (ARISE NEWS)

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