By ZAKAA LAZARUS
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has mourn victims of the tragic fire outbreak that engulfed the United Bank for Africa (UBA) building called Afriland Building on Lagos Island.
Recall, the fire claimed the lives of at least six persons and leaving many others injured, hospitalized, and battling for survival.
In a statement issued by NLC acting President, comrade Prince Adewale Adeyanju said, the congress grief is further deepened by the fresh memory of another devastating inferno that only a few days earlier consumed a long stretch of buildings, shops, and warehouses in the same axis of Lagos Island, destroying livelihoods and goods valued in billions of Naira.
He said while Nigerians are already struggling to survive the harshest economic conditions thus far in history as a result of the neoliberal economic policies of the Government.
He said these fires are totally not accidents of fate. “They are products of systemic rot, institutional negligence, and the reckless disregard for safety rules and human dignity that have become the hallmark of governance in Nigeria.
“What we are witnessing is not merely fire; it is the fire of corruption, the fire of inefficiency, the fire of collapsed institutions, and the fire of state abandonment of its fundamental duty; the protection of lives and property.
“The case of the UBA, which may be a case of negligence by such a huge Bank to put safety measures in place to protect the lives of its customers and workers. In situations where the lives of workers are disregarded in pursuit of corporate profits, what you get is that basic safety precautions for workers are either downgraded or totally disregarded. Does the life of workers matter? They will normally quip!
“We are not saying that such incidents do not occur in other climes but what baffles us here was the sight of some Nigerian workers jumping out of windows on high rise buildings for fear of their lives. One wonders if there was any significant safety precautions in designing and managing the building and whether the workers were adequately trained and prepared for such eventualities while whether internal Crisis Management teams were put in place to act as first responders to such incidents before it occurred.
“The Outbreak in the area dominated by Shops and Warehouses has been touted as pre-meditated but we have observed that just like any other thing in our society; there is always a pandering to conspiracies.
However, they noted that fires in the various markets around Lagos have become endemic and an annual ritual demanding that the Government not only at the federal level but by the state Government should have put in place adequate safeguards to ensure that the sweats of struggling citizens are not wasted in such fire outbreaks. We believe that when we are seriously prepared as a result of our learnings from previous experiences, we can handle subsequent outbreaks better if not reduce their occurrences drastically.
“We must remember that every society is ultimately judged by how it safeguards its citizens. Yet in Lagos, and indeed across Nigeria, we see the opposite: fire disasters met with no water; collapsing buildings met with no rescue; dying workers and citizens met with no emergency response. What does it say about a nation when its fire services are without hydrants, its emergency management agencies lack functional equipment, and its citizens are left to perish in flames because the state has abdicated its most basic responsibility to the citizenry. One of the basic expectations of Nigerians from the government is that they are protected from such outbreaks as such services are social and its activation is the only way to justify the humongous taxes, levies and fees that contribute to the ever-burgeoning purse of the federal and Lagos state Government.
“We must ask: why do we continue to witness the same cycle of tragedies? Why are corporate institutions allowed to compromise safety standards without accountability? Why do government agencies budget billions annually yet arrive empty-handed in the hour of need?
The congress said the answer lies in the anti-people logic of neoliberal governance; where profit is placed above people, where safety budgets are looted, where institutions meant to protect the poor are hollowed out by corruption, and where the lives of workers and citizens are treated as Pawns and expendables.
The NLC insists that Nigerian lives are not cheap! No worker should leave home in the morning and end up in the morgue because of preventable disasters. No trader should watch their sweat and blood go up in flames because those in charge of safety see governance as a business venture.
“No family should be left broken by a fire that could have been put out if only the building had functional hydrants or if the fire service had water in its tank or a ladder that worked and much more that they had vehicle that responded and arrived on time.
The congress demand the following:
“Immediate and independent investigation into the UBA building fire and the Lagos Island shops, buildings and Warehouses inferno, with public disclosure of findings and accountability for all those whose negligence or complicity enabled the tragedies.
“Urgent strengthening of fire services and emergency response agencies at federal, state, and local levels, equipped with modern tools, trained personnel, and adequate funding transparently managed.
“Mandatory enforcement of workplace and public safety standards in all corporate and commercial buildings, with stiff penalties for violations.
“Adequate Compensation for all victims and families of these tragedies, including medical care for the injured and support for traders and workers who have lost livelihoods.
“A movement away from profit-over-people governance to a human-centered development model where the safety, welfare, and dignity of Nigerians take precedence over the greed of the few. Let us move to a place where the insane pursuit of IGR is made secondary while the ensuring that lives and means of livelihood of the majority are protected takes a strong primary position.
The Nigeria Labour Congress warns that these tragedies must not be swept aside as mere statistics.
“The blood of the workers who are victims cries out for justice. The ashes of burnt buildings are testimonies of state failure. The tears of widows, orphans, and workers remind us that the struggle for a just society is not an abstraction but a necessity. It must be remembered that the workers in the Banks and the market traders are all members of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and deserved to be protected.
“As a footnote, we want to commend the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on its response thus far in alerting Nigerians on the impending floods in some flood-prone areas in Nigeria. We must go beyond warning to take actions to ensure the evacuation of communities around these areas and provisioning for them in suitable locations where they can continue with their lives until the floods abate. NEMA must take steps to stop such floodings in the long run so that it does not become a vicious cycle that repeats itself every year. We must find solution to the annual floodings that come as a result of the release of water by the Cameroonian Dam upstream; the mitigating factors that had been proposed ought to have been put in place since to avert the consequences of these annual floods and other such like natural disasters in our nation.
“We call on all Nigerians; workers, traders, professionals, artisans, students, and the unemployed; to refuse to normalize this culture of death. We must unite to demand a system where public institutions work, where safety is guaranteed, and where governance means protection, not abandonment.
“The NLC stands with the victims, mourns with their families, and recommits itself to the struggle for a Nigeria where human life is valued above profit and where tragedies like these become impossible, not inevitable.
“The security of lives and property is fundamental to the quest for greater social responsibility by Government at all levels and corporate citizens. When they act more responsibly, we build a sustainable nation.
