As
Nigerians joined workers all over the world to celebrate May Day,
otherwise known as Workers’ Day, a Catholic cleric, Rev. Father John
Konyeke Asaba decried the non-signing of Nigeria’s 2016 budget into law.
Delivering a
sermon yesterday at the Catholic Church of the Ascension, Asaba, Delta
State, Fr. Konyeke pointed out that the non-signing of the budget was
affecting workers in Nigeria negatively at both he said formal and non-formal sectors.
Specifically,
the workers have been put in chains practically by the reason of the
non-signing of the country’s annual budget almost midway into the year,
the cleric asserted.
Konyeke
queried, “How can the workers be free if by first day of May the budget
has not been passed; what will the workers be celebrating? Even in our
national anthem, it was clearly stated that ‘the labour of our heroes
past shall never be in vain…..”
He stressed
that it was “not right to play politics with the economy of the
nation”, saying the Senate President has not had relief from law since
his assumption of office while people were not sure of the situation of
things in the country as some workers were being owed salaries for
months in most states of the federation.
Noting that most Nigerian were demoralized because they cannot survive on their monthly pay, Fr Konyeke noted, “Today,
workers will simply say ‘what are we celebrating? What have our
employers done to better our lives when we cannot pay the school fees of
our children?’
“There are
workers who are not interested in embezzling money, but is their pay for
the work they do ok? Many are suffering despite their belief that there
is dignity in labour. If you love your neighbour as yourself, you will
have regards for workers, you will have respect for the petrol
attendants, the rice sellers, including your gardener.”
This is
coming on the heels of the charge by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa to the
workers in Delta State to brace up to the realities thrown up by the
current economic downturn in the country, even as he admitted
helplessness regarding over six months unpaid salaries of local
government workers.
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