Drop Plans To Concession Major Airports- Labour Urges FG
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has urged the Federal Government to desist from further contemplation, discussions and arrangements to concession major airports in the country.
Mr Ayuba Wabba, the NLC President said this in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja.
Wabba said that organised labour condemned the plans by government to concession Nigeria’s major airports.
“It was with great alarm that we learnt of the renewed efforts by the Federal Government to concession Nigeria’s major airports.
“The airports are the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos and the Port Harcourt International Airport to private sector interests.
“Nigerians may recall that the current concession drive of the present government did not start today. It has been part of the neo-liberal predilection of successive governments in Nigeria.
“It stretched from the military era up till the current democratic dispensation to deregulate, concession, and privatise critical national assets to their cronies and friends,” he said.
Wabba said the organised labour had identified this approach to governance as reactionary, predatory and self-serving.
“We rejected concession of our core national assets yesterday. We are rejecting it today!,’’ he said.
Wabba said that the unwholesome and unpatriotic attitude of giving away the country’s prized national property to private sector operatives was not only unjust and immoral but also in ultra-violations.
The NLC president said that this violates Chapter 2, Section 16 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the Fundamental Objectives and the Directive Principles of State Policy.
“The policy states that the Nigerian government must manage and operate the major sectors of the economy and ensure that our economy is not operated to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group.
“It is important to note that when our airports, especially the ones earmarked for concession were in states of eye sore and dilapidation, private capital did not invest towards their rehabilitation.
“It would be a grand insult to the collective intelligence of the Nigerian public for the Federal Government to invest a lot of public funds into the reconstruction and rehabilitation of our airports and then hand them over to private sector players for profit maximisation and at the expense of the tax paying public.
“This is unjust. It is immoral. This cannot stand, ” he said.
