Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has threatened showdown with mogul, Aliko Dangote, on his planned investment deal with Morocco. Morocco has been under searchlight on the continued colonisation and subjugation of the people of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR, otherwise known as Western Sahara.
Dangote had told a business forum in Lagos that his firm was close to signing a deal with a Moroccan firm to supply phosphate to feed a planned fertiliser plant.
But speaking in Abuja yesterday during the inauguration of National Movement for the Liberation of Western Sahara, NLC President, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, warned that such plan would be met by strong resistance from the labour movement. The inauguration of the movement was spearheaded by the NLC and the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
Wabba, who described Dangote’s planned business deal with Morocco as an affront on the rights of the people of Western Sahara NANto self-determination, expressed the determination of the NLC and its allies to stop the deal.
The NLC boss expressed shock at the entrepreneur’s planned business prospect with Morocco, especially at a time international outcry for economic sanctions against the Moroccan government was at its ascendancy. His words: “An injury to one is an injury to all.
We heard that Dangote is planning business prospect with Morocco. We are ready to bring the full weight of the people to stop such business deal. We call on Dangote to respect the self-determination efforts of Saharawi people,” Wabba said.
While decrying the deplorable conditions of the Saharawis, the NLC boss expressed the commitment of the congress, in conjunction with civil society organisations, to the total liberation of the Saharawi people.
In his keynote address, Chairman, Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, called on African leaders to put pressure on the members of the United Nations Security Council to support the process of decolonisation of Western Sahara.
While calling for collective efforts to liberate the suffering Saharawis, the former external affairs minister, however, insisted that the UN could not be entirely relied upon, adding that only Africans could resolve it.
He said: “As we now live in a world where the relentless forces of globalisation and the threats to national, regional and global security are growing on a daily basis, a threat to peace and security anywhere should be seen as a threat to peace everywhere and thus demanding collective response.
“The continued denial of the exercise of the right of self-determination by the Saharawi people constitutes a threat to international peace and security.” In his address, the convener of the Committee for the Liberation of Western Sahara, Dr. Oladipo Fashina, noted that the goal of raising a mass movement was to join the army of international movement for the termination of colonialism in Africa.
As part of the moves to force the Moroccan government to respect the sovereignty of the SADR, the former ASUU president called for the economic, political and social isolation of Morocco as it was the case with the apartheid regime in South Africa
National Mirrror…….
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