THE Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says the Federal Government has sold the nation’s commonwealth with the concession of public properties and planned concession of Nigerian airports.
Labour members who protested on Monday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos State against the proposed concession of the nation’s airports lamented that all the concessions done by government in the past yielded
“They have actually sold everything that is the commonwealth of myself and themselves and even for the unborn children, they have committed it to only their selfish interest alone,” one of the protesters said.
In a video seeing by The ICIR, the protesting union who carried placards bearing their grievances reiterated that the Federal Government’s concessions in the past have not yielded anything good for Nigerians.
“Government has taken an unpopular decision to want to commit the viable airports in Nigeria; the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos State, the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, and also the Port Harcourt International Airport they want to commit to themselves,” a woman wearing an NLC jersey questioned rhetorically.
“The public property that they have committed to themselves in the past, how many of them have been able to satisfy the need of the poor masses in the country.”
Citing an example to her claim, she asked what good has come out of the concession of the electricity sector by the government.
“Let us look back to how they committed the electricity to themselves, the concession of the electricity sector into Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBDC), Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC), Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company (IKEDC), since they shared our commonwealth to themselves, has there been any improvement,” she further questioned while the protesting crowd answered with ‘No’.
She further lamented that Nigeria as a country has been unable to establish a functional airway stating that it was shameful that South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia have airways while Nigeria has been unable to.
According to her, the government had promised to revive the educational, aviation and health sectors but has failed in those promises.
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Hadi Sirika, the Minister of Aviation had disclosed to a Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National Planning that the Federal Government had concluded plans to concession it’s 41 airports across Nigeria.
“Every single agency in civil aviation is so critical that we need to fund it and because we understand the nature of this business, that was why we have now introduced the concession of our airports. We have now done the outline business case; we are now going ahead for the procurement to concession the airports,” Sirika reportedly said.
