Organised labour has decried the worsening security situation in Nigeria and called on the Federal Government to overhaul the nation’s security system.
General secretary of the National Union of Textiles, Garments and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Comrade Issa Aremu, said at the weekend that workers such as journalists, farmers and herders were being killed, mindlessly. He cited the killing of Precious Owolabi, a Youth Corps member that served with Channels Television, as a typical example.
Owolabi died from gunshot wounds sustained at the scene of the clash between the police and protesting members of Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) in Abuja, recently.
The labour leader, who stated that insecurity had wider negative impacts on human capital development if unchecked, also argued that, while significant progress had been made to train human resources in a number of educational institutions, Nigeria was depleting its skilled hands through violent conflicts.
Aremu condemned the “wasteful” manner in which an enthusiastic, energetic journalist like Owolabi was cut down in an avoidable conflict between the police and members of Shi’ite movement. He added that it would take no fewer than 15 years and enormous resources to train a university graduate.
Aremu said that the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) had also lost hundreds of teachers and school officials to incessant killings and abductions by bandits in Zamfara state and other parts of the North.
According to him, for a country in which millions of children were out of school, unchecked murders of “trained professionals like teachers and journalists like Owolabi would further deplete the country’s critical human capital.”
The labour leader noted that insecurity at play had been a daily fare for the majority of Nigerian workers. He called on security forces and employers to protect workers including journalists in the areas of conflicts.