Even in this week of the celebration of our 55 years of nationhood, the harvest of blood continues unabated in Nigeria while those who may have been responsible for the sorry state of the socio-polity unfortunately find reasons to clink their glasses and doff their hats. We are aghast at the mood of the various celebrations in some areas when the occasion demands sobriety and deep reflections on our journey as a nation with all the missed opportunities and tragedies.

The twin bomb blasts in Kuje and the lone blast in Nyanya are all sad reminders to all Nigerians that despite all the stories we kept on hearing from the Government, our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers and relations are still losing their lives in droves in the North East region of the country. The truth as it may is that the Boko haram insurgency is far from being over; limbs are still being dismembered, heads are still being cut, body parts are still littering our streets and much more, our streets are being flooded with the blood of innocent Nigerian citizens.

As a nation, our leaders must use the opportunity of this period and the twin tragedy to be humble enough to realise the enormity of the disaster that awaits this nation if we continue playing politics with the Boko Haram insurgency. This is the time to eat whatever humble pie that is necessary for bringing this crisis to an end. It does not only require collective action but it requires deep humility on the part of the leadership to openly tell Nigerians the truth as regards the situation and to canvass for assistance from whatsoever quarters possible to end it once and for all and save the masses of our beloved nation from the explosives that have been raining upon them for some years now. We insist that grandstanding and brinkmanship of whatsoever kind is not needed at this time.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) feels that this is a desecration of our nationhood. That the Boko Haram sect was able to hit very close to the seat of power and in the federal capital territory within the period the nation is marking its 55th anniversary defiles us as a people and questions the ability of the Security apparatchik to deliver on the promises of the federal Government on dismantling insecurity in Nigeria.

We do not know whether the Security agencies are on the same page with the Government in its quest for a more secured nation or, is there a dissonance? It remains the duty of the Government at the centre to ensure that lives and properties are secured in Nigeria and if it finds out that the Security architecture and its leadership are not doing their jobs effectively then, people must be repositioned and the structures rejigged so that incidences like the latest bomb blasts will be avoided.

We in the Congress in the context of this period believe that if there is any reason at all to celebrate, it should be to celebrate Nigerians not because we have attained the heights which our founding fathers had envisioned and purposed for us as a nation and which was the driving force behind their determination to wrest power from the grips of the Colonial masters but because of their continued resilience in the face of wanton recklessness in the nation’s leadership most parts of the last 55 years.

When we talk about Nigerians here, we mean the men and women who daily put in their toils to keep Nigeria as a potentially great country; the workers at the different shop floors spread all over the nation; the farmers in the fields, the market men and women and the millions of unemployed denizens. These are the ones we are talking about and they are the ones that deserve to be celebrated.

We insist that this year’s celebration of 55 years of nationhood should be dedicated to the only thing that remains unsoiled and vibrant – the common people. They have collectively survived the decades of continuous misrule and wicked afflictions meted out to them by the ruling elite who have kept on recycling themselves in the corridors of power and which has kept this nation rooted in one spot since independence. We are sure that the ruling elites are surprised at the resilience of the ordinary Nigerian; his rising again on daily basis after the previous day’s onslaught against him and trudging on. We are not surprised when one of the maximum rulers then exclaimed his surprise that Nigeria was still standing after all these periods of bashing by his colleagues who had looted the nation dry.

The masses of this nation are the ones who deserve to be celebrated. They are the ones that get killed in numbers all over the nation, they are the ones who suffer deprivation and hunger as a result of the heartless activities of corrupt and inept politicians and they are the ones who are denied access to basic social infrastructure and public services because the overlords of this nation have decided that they will not make those provisions available; just this night, they are the ones that lost their lives in Maidugiri, Kuje and Nyanya again!

Despite all these, the masses and workers of this nation are the ones who have kept this nation united and going. It is their spirit and consciousness which unfortunately the ruling elite keep on abusing and manipulating from time to time that has meshed this nation into a seeming whole sustaining it even in the midst of destabilising actions of the nation’s politicians.

The essence of independence is freedom from the shackles of the oppressive colonial regimes. Independence is a separation from the powers of underdevelopment. For Nigerians Independence mean separation from Poverty; diseases, hunger, backwardness, insecurity and unemployment. If we are not therefore truly separated from the various manifestations of captivity, we are not truly independent.

We urge those in the various corridors of power to use this period to think about the common man in Nigeria; the suffering masses and the Nigerian workers. It is important that they remember that all the noise about Governance is about this people. It is about the quality of life and not about political chicanery and its sorts. It is time that actions are taken that would consciously stop the cause of insurgency, kidnapping and armed robbery in Nigeria at source. It is time to begin to invest in Nigerians. It is time to begin to lift our people consciously and steadily out of poverty. The nation’s resources belong to all of us and the governing 1% should remember the remaining 99% because that is where the future of Nigeria lies. That is the real independence.

Nigerian workers urge the President of the federal republic to make all his diplomatic shuttles which he embarked upon immediately after being sworn in count. The new strategies which he adopted on coming in must begin to make discernible impact on the lives of Nigerians. We want to feel our Governments close to us again; we want to own our Government again so, we ask that the President talks to Nigerians more often in his usually very open and frank manner. That is the only way this period of our anniversary will have any meaning – showing that power really has returned to the people!

•Comrade Joe Ajaero, whose photo appears alongside this piece, is factional President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

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