Textile and Garment Workers’ union, an affiliate of the NLC says “post humous praises for good leadership are as desirable as their celebration while alive”. The General Secretary of the union, Comrade Issa Aremu said this in Kano on Tuesday during the Condolence visit of the union to the family of the late Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan masanin Kano and the Governor of Kano State, Alhaji (Dr.) Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. The union in a statement signed by both its President John Adaji and Secretary General Issa Aremu observed that like other statesmen of his generation, the late Dan masanin Kano, “epitomized dignity of Labour” adding that the deceased commendably lived on “hard and smart work not proceeds of crimes and corruption which now make up the official fad today”. According to the union, it was time Nigeria celebrated its heroes alive for the youths to emulate.
The union pointed out that as the pioneer Minister of Petroleum from 1959 to 1966 Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, Dan masanin Kano who it said conceived and built the first Port Harcourt Refinery, “never acquired any oil block or even a filling station”!
The death of Alhaji Maitaima Sule the statement said was a huge loss to textile union singling him out as “…a motivator, a mentor and a resource fellow” to the Labour movement. The union recalled that during the military regime when it was dangerous to identify with trade unionists fighting for workers’ rights the late elder statesman “enthusiastically presided over the union’s educational conferences with far reaching eloquent advise to the regimes in power and prayers for the citizens”. The union observed that “very few elder statesmen talked straight to power with skill and dexterity the way Dr. Maitama Sule did during his life times”.
The union recalled that Dr. Maitaima with “his legendary oratory”, was a star guest speaker at the 1997 edition of the union’ education conference during which he publicly proclaimed Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, then General Secretary of the union as his “son” adding the endorsement was timely and protective of Comrade Adams who the union observed the military had persecuted through obnoxious decrees aimed at preventing him to contest for the presidency of the NLC”. The union said its members were truly privileged to have associated with “late great African and global statesman”, who it said died at “a time Nigeria seems to be under attack by misguided local and external centrifugal forces of various hues”. It noted that true to his commitment to nation building, the last days of the Dan Masani Kano, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, were quite eventful and solely dedicated to the Nigerian project willing to guide aright misguided youths from ethnic xenophobia to the tasks of nation building.
