By Bimbola Oyesola
Workers in the steel and engineering sub-sector have asked the Federal Government to dissolve the board of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) over failure of the privatisation exercise in the automobile sector that has led to the collapse of major companies.
The Steel and Engineering Workers’ Union of Nigeria (SEWUN) of the auto and precision sector said dissolving the board was pertinent, alleging that the whole privatisation exercise was a fraud, whereby automobile manufacturing companies were sold to people with no knowledge, expertise nor technical skills to manufacture or assemble vehicles.
National president of SEWUN, Auto and Precision Sector, Elijah Adigun, said this at the union’s yearly industrial relations conference, in Ibadan, Oyo State, recently, with the theme “Human Resource Management, Conflict Resolution, Industrial Relations and Labour Legislation Issues.”
He reasoned that the BPE has done more harm than good to the Nigerian state.
Mentioning automobile companies like Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited in Kaduna, Volkswagen Nigeria Limited in Lagos, Annamco in Enugu and Leyland Bussan Motors in Ibadan, among others, he queried Nigerians in support of the privatisation exercise to list any of the automobile companies currently doing well as stated by the BPE.
He alleged that the BPE, under the supervision of government officials, simply sold the companies to their friends and family members, who in turn sold the assets of the companies and left skeletal services, as well as abandoned the employees.
He said, “In fact, the whole exercise was a fraud and colossal failure. It is incredible that the Nigerian people watched akimbo while those we put in place to see to the revitalisation of these companies and create massive jobs connived with officials of the BPE to rip the country off and milk it dry. Unfortunately, some of these personnel are clamouring to rule Nigeria now and we are still watching instead of exposing them all.
“These companies had a combined workforce of more than 20,000, but today, you hardly cannot find up to 200 in all the companies put together. This is the situation that one of the candidates is telling us that he wants to replicate. Wonderful! We are in for a hard time if such mindset wins.”
Adigun urged the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration not only to recover the companies, but to expose and charge the perpetrators to court as a way of seeking redress for the Nigerian people.
According to him, this is the worthy legacy the government will surely leave behind, otherwise, the country will continue to drift.
Among other issues, Adigun lamented how the industry is poorly impacted by the economy, thereby making their job difficult.
He stated, “There is no forex to import the needed raw materials for production and in some cases, cost of procurement and production have tremendously skyrocketed as a result of galloping inflation occasioned by these forex challenges.
“High energy costs, increasing interest rates and all other forms of negativities have led to redundancies, particularly in the automobile and precision electrical industries. As we speak, some of our cable manufacturing companies are idling away because there is no raw material to effect production.”