One of the sectors that is said be doing well in spite of the downturn in the economic activities in the country is the food sector.
The President of the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE), one of the Industrial unions affiliated to the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) since 1978, Comrade Lateef Oyelekan however explained that the success recorded in the sector would not have been possible without the support of President Muhammadu Buhari.
What is your take on the economic challenges facing the country?
We are very proud to let you know that our union is well structured for administrative and operational convenience for clearer emphasis; our union is deliberately organised and structured. We have over 250,000 members spread across our various branches and units. Considering the adverse effect of economic meltdown on companies, resulting to closures of companies and production lines in our sector, our union has diversified into investment as alternative source of income generation to augment the ever dwindling check-off dues. Our diversification efforts has started to yield appreciable results with the under listed investment ventures already in place, a 5-star hotel, table water factory (we are the first labour union to do that in Africa). It is pertinent to note that our water which has enjoyed national acceptance featured prominently at the National Independence Day Celebration at the presidency for the year 2016 and 2018 respectively. We also have three special event centres, a relaxation and a distributive ventures. However, in consideration of our humble achievements as enunciated above, our union has been recognised with various awards both nationally and internationally and prominent among the awards is the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) graciously awarded to me by President Muhammadu Buhari in recognition of our ability to support the government in its drive on employment generation. In the same vein, I was appointed by President Buhari as a Board Member of the National Productivity Centre (NPC), Abuja.
Is that why your union is supporting Buhari?
After an in-depth and diligent evaluations of President Muhammadu Buhari’s performance within a space of three and half years in office most especially as it concerned our union, we are convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that President Buhari’s government has glaringly impacted our union and generality of Nigerian positively in diverse ways. Suffice to mention some unique impacts of President Buhari’s government that has endeared him very close to us, which includes: Enabling environment for industrial relation. It is an undeniable fact that President Buhari’s administration has painstakingly created an unprecedented enabling environment required for a stress free Labour/Industrial Relations practice and administration both in the Public and Private sectors which accounts for the relative industrial peace and harmony prevalent in all sectors of industrial relations practice and administration, particularly in Food and Beverage sector by direct and indirect promotion of collaborative strategy between the employers and unions in our sector. The government has reduced drastically, importation and smuggling of beverages, spirit wines and confectioneries. President Buhari’s government has proven its absolute commitment towards waging war frontally against corruption induced economic sabotage being perpetrated by smugglers and marketers who engaged in using Nigeria as dumping ground for substandard beverages, wines, spirit and confectioneries. This has brought about drastic reduction in smuggling and importation of food and beverages items which was at the detriment of highly standard locally produced ones. By so doing, the country has been saved millions of dollars, lost annually to smuggling activities, thereby protecting local industries and saving jobs of thousands of Nigerians.
It is a fact that prior to the election of President Buhari, our dear country was bedeviled with uncontrolled influx of foreigners disguising as so-called expatriates who came in to take the scanty jobs available and meant for Nigerians thereby subjecting more competent Nigerians to second class citizens in our beloved country. However, with the patriotic introduction of Executive ORDER ‘5’ by President Buhari, the despicable practice of expatriates quota abuse and influx of all manners of foreigners who take few jobs meant for Nigerians is steadily and consistently fading out.
Apparently, President Buhari’s patriotic action was a reaction to our union and other industrial unions well-articulated protests and memorandum forwarded to the presidency through the Minister of Labour and Employment (Senator Chris Nwabueze Ngige) to draw the attention of government to the dangerous implications of uncontrolled expatriates influx. For this spectacular action, our union leadership and indeed all our members shall remain eternally grateful to President Buhari.
Therefore in view of the above reasons and many other reasons too numerous to mention, the leadership and the entire members of our union across the length and breadth of the county has resolved to endorse the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari for a well-deserved second term in office to enable him consolidate on the masses oriented programmes he has started and to further introduce more transformational innovations that will effectively accelerate the move of our beloved country to Eldorado and getting upgraded to one of the 10 best economies in the world. Meanwhile, in other to translate our endorsement for President Buhari to electoral success, we have fully mobilised all our members to obtain their PVC and ensure that their votes counted on February 16.
Source : sunnewsonline.com
