Coalition of all Northern CSOs meets in Kaduna over alleged Govt harsh policies

 

All Northern civil society groups and youth groups in the North have held a roundtable meeting in Kaduna, Kaduna State resolving to form a parallel body in opposition to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) to carry out future actions against government’s impunity and harsh policies, alleging that both the NLC and TUC leadership have compromised their positions.

The meeting convened under the auspices of Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), yesterday, passed a vote of no confidence on the leadership of the NLC, TUC and all elected representatives in the country, describing them as incompetent sole negotiators with government on issues that negatively affect the general population.

The group in their resolution signed by the spokesperson of CNG, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, expressed regret and concern by the “apparent failure of elected representatives at all levels of governance to effectively administer and manage people and resources.”

The CNG also expressed concern that “critical decisions are no longer undertaken by the right people in society at the right time to deal with multiple challenges facing the Nigerian masses, particularly Northern Nigeria.

“These hardships were recently exacerbated by the introduction of a regime of harsh economic policies that include indiscriminate hike in pump price of fuel and electricity tariff by the Federal Government.

“Typically, the leadership of the NLC and TUC entrusted with the management of a planned national action to force reversal of these policies inadvertently bungled the opportunity, compromised and entered into a warped agreement with government at the expense of the general public.

“Against this background, the CNG in its usual resolve to confront and proffer strategic solutions to these challenges, convened an All Northern Nigerian  Civil Society/NGOs roundtable that reviewed essentially the competence of the present set of leaders of workers unions and elected representatives to guarantee the wellbeing of the mass population.

“About 200 different Northern Nigerian associations that cut across, gender, class, religion  and ethnicity  accepted to support CNG’s agenda setting in this regard and arrived at strategic recommendations,” it stated.

The meeting observed among other things, that Northern Nigeria is now rendered virtually debased in view of its multidimensional problems, degeneration and loss of its values, created over the years by its own society and bad leadership.

It also observed that the North is at present witnessing an exponential decline in its core value system, socio-economic and political capacity that hitherto bestowed it with its global relevance for multiple reasons.

It noted that, “Whereas with its abundant human and natural resources such as agriculture, trade and human intellectual capacity,” bad governance appeared to be among the reasons bringing about myriads of challenges of insecurity, education, socio-economic and political, making the region vulnerable and near total collapse and degenerated, saying Northern Nigeria has a great potential to excel as a region.

“It was observed that elected representatives at all levels and the leadership of NLC/TUC have failed the expectations of the general population, thereby relieving themselves of further recognition.”

The meeting therefore unanimously agreed to pass a vote of no confidence on the leaderships of the NLC/TUC and all elected representatives at all levels.

It declared NLC, TUC incompetent as sole negotiator with government issues that affect the general population and resolved to communicate the findings of the roundtable in writing to the leadership of the labour union.

It also resolved and agreed that a more viable, confident and unified platform should be formed to carry out future autonomous actions against this and further impunity by government, and set up a committee with the mandate of designing modalities for the creation and locating the new platform in the prevailing circumstance.

The meeting also agreed that all the affiliating groups and CNG officials should commence mass grassroots mobilisation and sensitisation, while awaiting the outcome of the adjourned labour/government meeting in the next few days.