May we write to express our concern over the silence of the Nigeria Labour Congress on the matter of the absence of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua from duty since November 23, 2009. The circumstance has necessitated intervention by all patriots and nationalists to ensure that unnecessary and avoidable crisis in the management and functioning of the Federal Government did not result.

So far, the management of information about Mr. President’s health situation by the Presidency is deplorable and unacceptable. Citizens and organizations in the country have expressed opposition through both legal actions and civil protests. Unfortunately, the NLC, being the umbrella organization of Nigerian workers and over the years through its patriotic mass actions as the vanguard for the struggle for justice, has maintained an undignified silence.

At this moment of national pain, when a simple matter with clearly constitutional provisions for its resolution is being mismanaged to the detriment of national stability, with potential threat to law and order; we find it extremely difficult to understand why the NLC could adopt business-as-usual disposition and continue to conduct its affairs as if the Nigerian state and government is not facing a constitutional crisis.

The least that will be expected is for the NLC to, in its usual tradition, subject the matter to a debate through its organs and allow the leadership of affiliated unions to decide on the matter. As things stand today, this has not happened. However, information available to us indicates that a meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC) is scheduled to hold on March 4, 2010 at Kaduna. We are not sure debate on the political crisis will be a priority at the meeting.

The Good Governance Group is therefore sending this letter of appeal to you as the President of Congress and through you to all members of the National Executive Council about the historical burden of responsibility on your shoulders individually and collectively. The capacity to faithfully discharge this historical burden of responsibility is what has defined and distinguished Nigerian trade unions from colonial period to date. The roles of generation of leaders of the Nigerian trade unions is guided by this fact and today’s generation of leaders of Nigerian trade unions do not have the luxury of betraying this history.

We urge you to kindly use the opportunity of the March 4, 2010 Kaduna NEC meeting of Congress to restore the leadership of Nigerian workers in the struggle for justice, freedom and unfettered Constitutionalism in Nigeria. Act now to save NLC from being recorded on the wrong part of our history.

Salihu Moh. Lukman,

Group Organizing Secretary