The National Conference committee on Civil Society, Labour and Sports has sacked its chairperson, Bola Ogunrimade, for absenteeism.
The committee replaced the sacked chair with her
deputy, Issa Aremu.
The committee, which is one of the ten committees of
the confab sitting at the NICON Luxury Hotel, took the
decision in a unanimous vote.
“Because of persistent non-appearance of the
chairperson, the committee members have asked me
to take over as the chairman and we intend to
communicate this to the secretariat,” Mr. Aremu said
while speaking to reporters after the sitting of the
committee.
Mr. Aremu said the former chairperson has not
reported formally since the committee took off.
“It is going to be difficult to drive a committee which
you don’t know the concept and the idea we have
been running,” he said
Mr. Aremu also said the committee had been
discussing on all the four thematic issues outlined in
its mandate.
“On labour we have had a robust discussion; we are
coming to a conclusion that labour is a critical partner
in the development process. It is the creator of
wealth, if we motivate labour very well, it can become
good partner in development of Nigeria.”
The Labour leader lamented the poor remuneration
policy in Nigeria.
“We have to address remuneration so that you don’t
have workers who become working beggars because
their income can hardly take care of them,” he said.
He also spoke about the citizens apparent ignorance of
labour laws in the country which he said was due to
inadequate information on labour matters.
He gave example with the victims of last week’s bomb
blast in Nyanya, Abuja.
“People are giving charity to victims of Nyanya blasts,
but under our laws, they have legitimate claims
because that accident happened to them at work,” he
said.
He also said that contrary to widespread perception,
religion was not the major problem with Nigeria
because according to him, only three per cent of the
delegates indicated interest to serve on the confab
Committee on Religion.
“Which means the so called religious divide is artificial;
it doesn’t exist. Delegates want to discuss issues that
affect all of us. Issues like devolution of power,
resource control, labour, they don’t want to discuss on
whether you go to the church or mosque.”
Mr. Aremu said “there is a lot the political class can
learn from this conference. Regardless of our
reservation and sectional interest we are having
common ground for development. If all of us at this
conference are united and face the insecurity
challenge, the elected would be free to do their
mandate”.
