The Federation of Informal Workers’ Organizations of Nigeria (FIWON), an umbrella platform for over 120 informal, self-employed organizations drawn from all over Nigeria has expressed displeasure with the “hollowness and utter irrelevance of on-going political campaigns especially by the major political parties, towards the 2015 elections.
The group, in a statement said that the 2015 elections would be coming on the heels of drastic reduction in the country’s foreign exchange earnings due to the fall in the international price of crude oil from a peak $140 per barrel in 2008 to the current low of about $46 per barrel, but expressed worries that the campaigns are being carried on without reference to these economic fundamentals and what type of reforms would be carried out to address Nigeria’s perennial dependence on crude oil.
FIWON is also concerned that none of the presidential candidates is addressing the critical structural problems characterizing the Nigerian social landscape: the massive youth unemployment, parlous infrastructures, absence of sustainable social protection programs, decimating armed banditry precipitating unprecedented state of insecurity especially in the Northeastern parts of the country and unacceptable levels of graft and corruption that characterize public expenditure management.
FIWON also expressed frustration at what it described as the policy “disarticulation and structural deformities governing the Nigerian economic system particularly the management of the Oil & Gas sectors of the economy.
“Nigeria continues to depend on imported refined petroleum products with the present contradiction of having to reduce domestic prices at a time when foreign exchange earnings are also plummeting downwards; whereas a regime of locally produced petroleum products through massive investments in building local refineries and revamping existing ones would have helped to provide quality jobs and buffer the vagaries of the volatile crude oil exportation economy.
“FIWON finds it worrisome that none of the political parties is addressing the challenge of fashioning out new approaches in the management of the Oil & Gas sector at a time when all the indications show that the downwards trend in pricing would continue in the foreseeable future as the US and other major importers of Nigeria’s crude now depend on their own shale oil.
“Even China and other Asian countries currently importing Nigeria’s crude are also furiously developing their own technologies for producing shale oil! FIWON demands realistic action plans from current political contenders on their policy responses to the obviously terribly governed Oil & Gas sector.
Also, FIWON says it is equally concerned that none of the major political parties is expressing firm commitments to redress the obviously failed reforms in the electricity sub-sector.
“One year after the complete privatization of Nigeria’s electricity generation and distribution plants, electricity power production has only declined with chaotic increases in tariffs. Yet all the political parties are silent on what they will do differently after the February elections.”
On youth unemployment and social protection, FIWON expressed shock that while none of the major political parties is coming out on how to frontally address the explosive problem of massive youth unemployment, one of the parties is actually promising to pay unemployment benefits!
“This is not only an embarrassing politicking about this vexatious issue, it actually bellies a poor understanding of the basic economics of providing social safety nets or social security/protection in a backward economy such as ours!
“FIWON reiterates its demand for social protection which we have been consistent in canvassing since 2011 when we launched a national campaign for social protection; a campaign which we have carried to the National Assembly while a Draft Bill on Social Assistance has also been forwarded to National Assembly.
It said that drawing on international best practices especially from other developing world, realizing that the payment of unemployment benefits as being promised by one of the political parties is impossible for now and given the parlous state of the economy, FIWON demands that any political party genuinely interested in providing social security should focus on areas of universal health insurance, state assisted old age pensions for the currently excluded informal, self-employed working people as well as a system of providing disability grants and care for the disabled.
“What is needed to contain youth unemployment is massive infusion of investments in providing energy; both electricity and petrochemical fuel to power local industries, rapid rehabilitation of our roads and rail network and a less noisy but more effective policy to develop and modernize our agriculture and agro-allied industries, all of which will provide massive quality jobs for the youth.
On insecurity and armed insurrections, the group said that while everybody condemns the current general insecurity and the armed banditry and bloodletting of the notorious Boko Haram insurgents, the political parties have again consistently shy away from proffering practical ideas to contain the situation both in the short term and in the long run.
“FIWON calls on all political parties and their candidates jostling to rule us for the next four years to come up with actionable programmes to restore pace and normalcy to Nigeria.
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