AS WORKERS
CELEBRATE MAY DAY!
WORKERS AND THE
POOR MUST UNITE TO SAVE NIGERIA!!
JOIN AND BUILD
THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF NIGERIA (SPN)
The
Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), Lagos State Chapter, solidarises with workers
as we celebrate this year workers Day. The SPN is a party of Workers, Youths
and the Poor. For over 100 years, May 1st has been a day of working class
solidarity and agitation for improvement in their conditions.
Perhaps,
more than ever, it is the time to tenaciously work towards an alternative
economic and political system to capitalist policies and programs. In 1886,
American workers rallied together on May 1st to demand economic and political
justice, and to create an 8hour workday. It laid the basis for workers winning
more concessions through struggles at workplaces, factories and industry.
Today,
workers and other sections of working people face brutal social and economic
attacks from the governments at all levels. In Lagos, the Action Congress of
Nigeria (ACN), the ruling party despite claiming to be progressive, the daily
harrowing experience of the working people in the state has shown that the
party is as anti-poor and anti-worker as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and
other anti-poor parties.
Lagos
state is one of the states in Nigeria where the national minimum wage has not
been fully paid. In spite of the propaganda of the government, the workers know
the truth, though unfortunately they lack a fighting leadership. The Teachers
Salary Allowance (TSA) fought and won by teachers has been surreptitiously
taken back from them by the state government. It has been removed from their
pay slip under the guise of new minimum wage whose purported payment is
classical “Eko for Show”, the more you look the less you see. We must resist
this attack on pay and condition and look for political alternative. This is what SPN has offered.
Besides,
the government workers, some sections of ordinary people have had their means
of livelihood severely attacked. Okada operation has been banned on many roads
while the use of tokunbo cars for taxi operation has been proscribed. Ordinary
traders have had shops demolished without alternative or adequate compensation.
But
while workers are robbed of their legitimate pays and other sections of the working
people made to lose their means of livelihood, they are expected to pay more to
educate their children and to access health care facilities. This is in
addition to the fact that every household is now a municipal government with
its own power generation and water provision leading to skyrocketing cost of
living.
EDUCATION
Public
primary and secondary schools are not only over-crowded in many of the schools,
but also lack functional and adequate facilities for quality education like
laboratories and libraries. A few standard private schools are unaffordable for
most parents. University education in the state has been taken out of the reach
of children of working class people. The fees in LASU was increased from
N25,000 to between N193,750 and N348,750 by Fashola government. This is
outrageously anti-poor and pro-rich. The party and government with this heinous
policy does not deserve support of workers, it has to be ousted, but not to be
replaced by its like and PDP or other anti-poor parties. This is why workers
need a party like SPN. The party will massively invest in education at all
levels with well-paid education workers exposed to regular training and
re-training as well as adequate provision of facilities for quality education.
The SPN will scrap these inhuman fees in LASU and in other tertiary
institutions and we shall introduce free and qualitative education at all
levels in Lagos.
HEALTH
In
Lagos, the public hospitals are not enough, poorly staffed and scantily
equipped. Even at that, they are not affordable for most Lagosians. It explains
why many poor die from avoidable diseases/sickness. SPN will invest in public
hospitals and build additional ones. We shall also invest in research work. The
hospitals shall be run by committee made up of government appointed
experts/workers, elected representative of workers and the communities.
TRANSPORTATION
Lagos
State Government has shown obvious lack of capacity to provide Lagosians with
functional transportation system. Many roads are in such terrible shape such
that they are impassable and inaccessible. This is one of the reasons Okada has
become a major means of transportation. Fashola's response is to ban Okada in
475 roads. However, the same Fashola and ACN gave okada riders helmets and used
them to campaign during the 2011 general election. Fashola has only built very few roads while
many of the community roads have been abandoned.
The
state of the roads and drainage system are some the reasons there is flooding
in many places whenever it rains. The SPN is opposed to the ban and attacks on
Okada riders by the police and demand an end to these attacks. SPN is
interested in phasing out Okada as a means of public transportation and that
can be achieved by modernizing the means of transportation, which includes
building all roads with good drainage, putting in place a metro-line that
connects different parts of Lagos, investing in safe water transportation and
putting in place a public mass transit. This is the only way a mega population of
about 15 million can be successfully transported on a daily basis.
Social
infrastructure and public corporations can only be sustained if they are
democratically controlled by workers and communities to forestall mismanagement
and embezzlement. For instance, Fashola and Tinubu's BRT bus scheme is fast
collapsing and it explains why workers are regularly protesting and embarking
on strikes. For instance, out of about 800 BRT buses, only 190 are in working
condition while workers are paid poverty wages (Drivers earn about N30,000, bus
sweepers and depot cleaners earn about N12,000 monthly).
HOUSING
Lagos
ACN since 1999 has only built houses for the rich while the poor have been
abandoned. Despite that, the Tinubu and Fashola-led governments have continued
to demolish houses and markets without alternatives or adequate compensation.
The most recent is the inhuman demolition of Makoko, Ijora Badia and some
houses in Ikorodu, thereby rendering millions of Lagosians homeless. SPN is
opposed to such senseless demolitions without building alternative houses or
without paying adequate compensation to the victims. SPN in responding to the
housing crisis, will build different categories of decent housing estates whose
rent will be affordable to workers and the poor. Where it is desirable to
rebuild an area because of its poor or dangerous habitation, SPN government
will reach an agreement with the inhabitants on either to be paid adequate
compensations or to be relocated to a place built already.
TAX
Lagosians
are one of most taxed people in the world, particularly when you consider the
multiple taxation by different agencies and government at various levels. SPN
will introduce progressive taxation wherein the rich will pay more tax. SPN
will exempt the extremely poor, particularly those with low earnings either as
workers or as traders.
Lagos
Internal Generated Revenue (IGR) is N23 billion monthly while about N15 billion
is collected from federal allocation monthly, but there is very little to show
for this. The SPN government will be run transparently, hence much more funds
will be generated as all loopholes for stealing and looting would have been
blocked. These resources can be used to pay a minimum wage of N50,000 for
workers as well as open up the economy through massive investment in basic
infrastructure that will not only create jobs but also modernize the economy..
The
SPN is opposed to the lekki toll and other tolls planned by the Lagos State
Government. SPN shall scrap all tolls because it amounts to multiple
taxation.
WORKERS AND
CONDITION OF SERVICE
If
elected, the SPN government shall ensure the payment of living wage, not less
than national minimum wage; the provision of decent condition of service and
working condition, and the implementation of all national agreements reached
with all categories of workers. All this shall be without retrenchment of
workers. We shall invoke all necessary powers to ensure that the private sector
employers implement national minimum wage and obey labour laws including zero
tolerance to casualisation of workers. We shall pay to retired workers decent
pension. All political office holders on
the platform of the party in Lagos and elsewhere will receive the average
salary of civil servants.
FOR A WORKING
PEOPLE POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE
Nigerians
are not interested in replacing one behemoth with another leviathan or hydra
headed monster. The APC is an alliance
of convenience by disgruntled politicians lacking any progressive ideology to
save Nigerians, and whose main agenda is to preserve their inordinate ambition
to grab power at the centre, the “soul of the party” is not really different
from the much-derided PDP. For instance, APC claims that it will offer
Nigerians free education while Tinubu's ACN in Lagos has commercialized
education through outrageous fee hike like it was introduced in LASU.
Ultimately, Nigerians need a credible
alternative, not just to replace the PDP in power, but to replace other ruling
parties like ACN in Lagos. The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) is the party
Workers, Youths and the Poor should join and consciously build in order to save
the working people from social and economic ruin.
For full manifesto of the SPN, get a
published copy or visit our blog, www.socialistpartyofnigeria.blogspot.com
A NEW NIGERIA IS
POSSIBLE. JOIN US TODAY AND ORGANISE IN YOUR LOCALITIES
SPN is inviting
all those that are seeking change to a general meeting of the party. Date:
Saturday May 18, 2013.
Time: 12 noon
prompt. Address: 162, Ipaja Road, Agbotikuyo, bus stop, Agege. Contact us on: 08098284000,
07033775517,
08121378435, 08098737370. Email us: socialistpartyofnigeria@yahoo.com
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