NLC’s disrupted election

It was an ungainly sight for the NLC, whose leaders have for months been emphasising the need for transparent, free and fair general elections in the country, although the blame for this turn of event, given the details that have become public, lies with some of the candidates aspiring for the presidency of the Congress.There […]

It was an ungainly sight for the NLC, whose leaders have for months been emphasising the need for transparent, free and fair general elections in the country, although the blame for this turn of event, given the details that have become public, lies with some of the candidates aspiring for the presidency of the Congress.
There were three aspirants vying to replace outgoing NLC president Abdulwaheed Omar if the election had been successfully concluded. These are Ayuba Wabba, Chairman of the Medical and Health Workers of Nigeria (MHUN); Igwe Achese, president of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas  Workers (NUPENG); and Joe Ajaero, general secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE).
Apart from the NLC president, there were other posts that the election should have filled, like that of the deputy president and regional vice presidents.
According to accounts of the proceedings at the International Conference Centre in Abuja, trouble began when one of the aspirants, Mr Ajaero, claimed that the ballot was rigged, but provided no proof of this. According to him, some of the ballot papers had already been thumb-printed three times for one of the candidates. There is no record that he produced any of such ballot papers to buttress his claim, although this could yet the subject of investigation.
The other aspirant, Mr Achese, offered to step down and led his support to Ajaero.  However, as the voting trend became clearer, MHUN’s Mr Ayuba, was apparently in an unassailable lead, and the combined votes for the other two contenders were not likely to change the outcome.
Claiming that the vote had been rigged to favour Mr Wabba, Mr Ajaero, according to the reports, began kicking over the ballot boxes, and destroying the ballot papers they contained.
These accounts seem to illustrate the view that the fracas was orchestrated by one of the aspirants, and that it had nothing to do with any indication of a flawed process.
Still, it speaks to the weakness of the internal mechanisms in the NLC management that it could not surmount the setback immediately and deal with any errant member to allow the vote to proceed despite what was evidently a self-serving disruption.
This contrived stalemate should not be allowed to subsist for too long. The NLC should summon its National Executive Committee to deliberate on this show of shame, investigate what happened and set up a disciplinary panel to punish anyone found to be involved.
The Committee should also, with due cognisance of the NLC charter, fix new date for fresh elections to take place so that the new leadership can begin to function without further delay.
The NLC should avoid the scenario of mirroring what is happening on the national political scene, where a handful of persons would attempt to hijack the electoral process and blackmail the rest of the country into going along.
Because the NLC in recent years has not restricted itself to only labour issues, but has also served as the arrowhead behind which others line up to confront heavy-handed government policies,  it would be an important component in resolving the multifaceted socio-economic problems that the entire country faces today. But to do this, the NLC must first put its house in order and get its new leaders up and running soon.