The Newspapers for Monday, September 26, focus on the threat by the organized labour to embark on mass revolt over the proposed sale of nationals assets and the crisis rocking the APC.
The organized labour has threatened to embark on a mass revolt worse than the anti-SAP riots of 1989 over the propose sale of nationals assets.
Vanguard reports that the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC) Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in one accord, told government that it would be playing with fire should it go ahead to sell the assets.
The threat by labour follows calls by some eminent Nigerians for the sale of the country’s national assets as a way of reviving the nation’s ailing economy.
However, the minister of budget and planning Udoma Udo Udoma, said in a statement on Saturday, September 24, that the federal government would not sell critical national assets to shore up its foreign reserves as well as have funds to retool the economy against the current downward plunge.
He explained that government plans to source immediate funds to reflate the economy and implement capital projects in the 2016 budget.
But NUPENG and PENGASSAN have argued that the sale of would not profit the nation but a few privileged Nigerians, and threatened to shut Nigeria over the planned sale.
The union said the plan, meant to solve short term financial obligations, was targeted at handing over Nigerians’ collective commonwealth to a few individuals and further impoverish the rest of the people.
It advised that instead of selling assets, government should look for other ways of increasing the revenue base of the country, while plugging loopholes and leakages in public finances.
In politics, a major crisis has hit the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the national leader of the party calling for the removal of the party’s national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, over what he called the latter’s anti-democratic handling of the party affairs.
The Punch reports that Tinubu made the call in a scathing statement entitled, “Oyegun’s Ondo fraud: The violation of democracy in the APC,” released by the Tinubu media office on Sunday, September 25.
The party leader faulted Odigie-Oyegun’s handling of the outcome of the Ondo state governorship primary, arguing that the party’s leader democratic credentials had been dealt a big blow by Odigie-Oyegun’s conduct.
Tinubu said the APC’s the quest for democratic good governance was currently under a critical threat by those who managed to be in the party but were never part of it.
According to him, from the party’s inception, the principles of democratic fairness and justice are to guide the APC’s internal deliberations.
According to The Nation, revisiting the controversial Ondo APC primary, Tinubu said the role of the chairman in the circumstances that led to the submission of Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the governorship candidate for Ondo state, contrary to the advice of the party’s appeal committee and the decision of the national working committee (NWC), was in bad faith.
He said: “Oyegun’s transgressions are a warning. He is but the mercenary of forces that seek to return the nation to the old ways. If they get away with this infraction, no telling what or whom they will undermine tomorrow, much is at stake. On the chopping block lies the future of the political party in which the majority of voters had placed their confidence.
“To rescue the party, Oyegun must go. He has shown that he and democratic fair play cannot exist in the same party at the same time; the choice has already been made. For those who care about the party, who care about Nigeria and its chance for a better tomorrow, now is the time to stand against this brewing evil before it grows to encompass all we have built and all we hold dear.”
Tinubu said the Ondo APC primary which was supervised by Jigawa state governor, Badaru Abubakar, who he noted was not aware of the grand deception and the pre-conceived agenda, paled into a primary of irregularities, distorted delegates’ list, alteration and conspiracy to steal victory.
He queried, why Oyegun blocked the move to redress the injustice of the fraudulent primary, contrary to the Primary Appeal Panel’s recommendation and the National Working Committee’s (NWC)’s decision.
He said: “Contravening the NWC decision and in violation of all rules of fundamental decency, Oyegun decided to safeguard the fraud done in Ondo by perpetrating a greater fraud. Oyegun arrogated to himself the right to submit the name of Rotimi Akeredolu to INEC as the candidate of the party.”
According to the Sun, Tinubu said: “Oyegun arrogated to himself the right to submit the name of Akeredolu to INEC as the candidate of the party. Truth has finally come to light. “Our party was to stand for change. Oyegun and his fellows seem to be on a different wave length. They are the cohort of Unchange.
“The APC wants to guide Nigeria into a better tomorrow. Oyegun and the cohort of unchange want to pull Nigeria back into the past where rigging and vote stealing were the old and new testaments of politics. They want the people to think that there is no alternative to their reactionary system of skewed politics and imperious government.
“Thus, they seek to turn the APC into a factory of the very political malpractices the people soundly rejected in the past election. Much more than the Ondo primary is at stake. Oyegun has revealed his team’s game plan: It is the destruction of progressive politics and governance on behalf of the people.
“As party chairman, Oyegun was supposed to protect our internal processes and be an impartial arbiter, a person in whom all had confidence. Instead, he donned the garment of a confident man, duping the NWC, the party and INEC in one fell blow.
“He has robbed APC members in Ondo State of the chance to pick in a fair manner who they believe is the best candidate.
“As such, he has broken faith with the party and probably has broken a few laws. With strong expectation, we await a response to Oyegun’s wrongdoing from those who clamored so long and loudly about Tinubu’s alleged role in the Ondo primary.
“Thus, Oyegun was forced to undertake his desperate fraud in broad daylight in order to salvage the wrong initiated under the lamp of darkness. Those who so actively attributed imaginary wrong to Tinubu now stand dumb and mute in the face of confirmed impropriety. They remain silent for reasons they cannot divulge. Oyegun and his ilk turn out to be gangsters adorned in the tunic of party authority.
Tinubu stressed: “Oyegun has done the irredeemable. His coup is an insult to party and to patriot, to reason and to the reform agenda of this government. To remain silent would be to admit the defeat of the reform and progressive change many have laboured to bring forth. While the forces resistant to change and reform are strong, Tinubu dare not submit to them. Tinubu encouraged all party members not to submit to them. If we acquiesce in this wrong, the one greater than this shall cascade upon us.”
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s economic woes continue the naira continues to lose value against the United States dollar.
The Guardian reports that that devaluation has put the real value of the country’s debt stock at around N18.9 trillion, when considered at the official rate of N307.79 per dollar, according to figures from the Debt Management Office.
The additional naira stock (per dollar) that would be needed to service existing debt will cause the country to lose about N6.33 trillion, a near-equivalent of the 2016 budget, when compared to N12.6 trillion at N197 per dollar as at December 31, 2015. It is also a disincentive for future external borrowing despite a positive debt-to-GDP ratio.
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