The Nigeria Labour Congress promised on Monday to mobilize its members across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas in order to support Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, and win the 2023 election.
At the party’s national retreat on Monday in Abuja, NLC National President Ayuba Wabba made this statement.
He said, “One issue that we must take very seriously 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,” he said while speaking about how the party can achieve its objectives and better Nigeria.
“No country in the world can prosper and work in unity if the country is so divided. So one of the responsibilities of the Labour Party is to unite Nigerians along a common goal of development and prosperity.”
On the claims that LP lacked structure, opponents of the party and its presidential candidate often discounts Mr. Obi’s prospects of winning the election.
But Mr. Wabba is confident in the structure in place.
“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.
“It’s not that we don’t have structures; human beings are the structures. It is just to activate the structures and put them to use. It’s just like a weapon in military circles. You service them when the need arises.
“So the need has (arisen) for all the structures of the political commission of both TUC and NLC to be activated in all the 774 local governments. Importantly, also the structures of all our affiliates, both TUC and NLC, membership together is 12 million,” the NLC president said.
He defended the youths of the country, who have been rooting for Obi, saying they are not lazy and have been failed by various governments.
“I am so happy that the youths have aligned themselves with the structures and the struggles of the working class – we, their parents – because we are actually parents to the students and the youths because they are actually realising that agonising alone without organising cannot take us anywhere,” he added.