The Vice Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 elections, Peter Obi, has felicitated with workers as the world celebrates Workers’ Day today, May 1, 2021.
In a release made available to the press on Friday by his Media Office, Obi noted that the universality of worker’s day testifies to the unity in the goal of labour worldwide, which he said was for the uplift of the society and the ennobling of the human person.
Lamenting the poor condition of workers in Nigeria, Obi noted that things are made worse because poor economic realities in the country subject workers, as he said, “to live even below frugal comfort when even the agreed salaries are not paid.”
Obi said it was most pathetic that retirees are owed pension and gratuities even now they require all possible care.
Linking what Nigerians, including workers suffer to the cumulative years of leadership failure, he said that the inability of salaries and income to sustain Nigerians was principally due to the daily plummeting of the Naira, thus rendering life in the country “precarious and uncertain.”
Encouraging workers not to lose hope, Obi urged them to remain faithful and help in returning the glory of the country by being alive to their civic responsibilities of enthroning as our leaders, those with experience and the wherewithal to lead.
On the part of the leaders, Obi said that it was about time poor leadership, that had got Nigeria and Nigerians, including workers on their knees was checked. He called for reasonability in the way those in government treated workers, reminding them of workers’ role and contributions to the growth of the country thus urging them to use the occasion of Workers Day to reflect about the country.