The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has accused the
Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) of aiding telecommunications giant, MTN
Nigeria, to disobey extant Nigerian laws and international labour laws and
convention which the country signed since 1960.
Labour is also accusing MTN Nigeria of subjecting
Nigerian workers to untold harsh and unfriendly labour practices such as
casualisation, disallowing unionisation among others.
It is also accusing MTN Nigeria of being one of the
biggest threats to Nigeria’s security, putting the lives of Nigerian security
agents at risk and funding their global operation with funds made from Nigeria,
while subjecting Nigerian workers to untold hardship.
In a letter to the Secretary to the Government of
the Federation (SGF) and signed by the President, Ayuba Wabba, on Tuesday, the NLC said it
was forced to picket the company’s offices across the country because of its
clear violation of national and international labour laws especially ILO
Conventions 87 and 98, and has denied its workers their fundamental rights at
work which Nigeria ratified since 1960.
Wabba said it was unfortunate that the NCC that is
supposed to be a regulatory agency statutorily charged with the dual role of
creating an enabling environment for business operations as well as protecting
consumers and workers has failed to play that role.
Wabba said: “It is perfidious that NCC sees its
role only as that of protecting the telecoms infrastructure, even though none
of them came under threat as alleged by MTN during our peaceful picket.
“The rush by NCC to report NLC to the Office of the
National Security Adviser (ONSA) is both hypocritical and suspicious, but we do
know that he who plays the piper, dictates the tune.
“NCC did not see anything wrong with hosting
critical data outside Nigeria or with continual loss of jobs by Nigerians in
spite of the unspeakable money made and repatriated by telecoms operators.
“It did not see anything wrong with the violation
of Nigerian laws, labour laws or security breaches leading to the loss of lives
of security personnel, not to talk of huge illicit financial flows as
highlighted in the Thabo Mbeki Report which continue to undermine our national
wellbeing (security).
“In our estimation, the greatest threat to
Nigeria’s national security is not by Nigerian workers but the bullish and
arrogant attitude of MTN and its co-travellers or collaborators like the NCC.
“Let NCC continue to promote this talk about MTN
infrastructure constituting core critical national asset. We do not begrudge
them. For us at the NLC, however, no asset can be more critical to Nigeria than
Nigerians themselves.
“Accordingly, we wish to put NCC on notice that we
will picket it the way we picketed MTN if it continues to discharge its duties breaching
the law. Let it continue with its ‘Amebo’ instead of doing the work for which it
is established.
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