Easter: NLC demands responsive governance

urges govt on workers’ plight

The Nigeria Labour Congress has demanded a more humane and responsive governance anchored on the people, urging the government to be more sensitive to the plight of Nigerian workers and people.

The NLC in an Easter message tagged ‘This Easter: A Cross For Liberty!’, argued that the use of state power to suppress workers’ rights, silence dissent, or to impose austerity that benefits a tiny elite while crushing the majority was a betrayal of the very essence of leadership and negates the spirit of the season.

Signed by the NLC President Joe Ajaero, the congress called on Nigerian leaders to learn from the Cross.

They urged them that they must stop seeing governance as an opportunity for primitive accumulation but instead see it as a platform for sacrificial service.

According to the NLC, it is important that those who occupy positions of leadership understand that policies must be tools of liberation, not weapons of oppression.

Just as Christ at the Cross destroyed the hold darkness had over the people, making a public show of shame of the forces of oppression, the NLC demanded that the government use its power to break the chokeholds that poverty, exploitation, insecurity, and infrastructure collapse have on the people.

Noting that the soaring cost of transportation was a heavy yoke on the necks of workers, the labour congress said it devours workers’ wages, steals their time, and reduces their existence to a daily struggle for survival.

It stated that the absence of electricity, inducing darkness across the nation, was not merely a technical failure but a weapon of mass disempowerment.

“It cripples our industries, kills our small businesses, and plunges our homes into darkness, making it impossible for the working class to live with dignity. We demand that the pains of today be transformed into a victory for the people through the implementation of policies that restore public transportation, end the electricity crisis, stop the killings and place the welfare of the masses above the profits of a privileged few,” it said.

The NLC described the season as not merely a religious ritual but a deep moment of ideological clarity, reminding that the infinite love of God for humanity was demonstrated not in abstract words, but in the ultimate act of sacrifice; the giving of His only begotten Son; Jesus to break the chains of sin and death.

Noting that the sacrifice of Jesus at Calvary was not for personal gain, but for the redemption of the people, it added: “In contrast, the sacrifices demanded of Nigerian workers today are ones we never consented to; the sacrifice of our wages on the altar of profiteering, the sacrifice of our safety on the altar of insecurity, and the sacrifice of our very lives on the altar of missed opportunities to govern effectively.

This is while our leaders hide in Armoured vehicles or surround themselves with heavy security refusing to make any significant sacrifice.”