Human and trade union rights will receive serious attention of the Regional Organisation of International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa), the newly elected General Secretary of the Confederation, Comrade Akhator Joel Odigie, said.
Odigie said this shortly after his emergence as the new general Secretary of ITUC-Africa at the just concluded fifth Ordinary Congress held in Nairobi Kenya. He went on to say; “we will contribute more to structural transformation of Africa”.
The Nigeria born trade unionist, called for support and prayers as the organisation gears to pursuing human and trade union rights across African continent.
“I am immensely grateful to my God, He has been everything and all things to me. He has been consistent and given me strength. So we ask for support of those who believe in what we do, we ask that you continue to pray for us to do more.”
Furthermore, he said; “We want to contribute more to structural transformation of Africa. We have so much mineral resources deposit in our continent, but we don’t contribute to the value addition. So we are going to look at how we can address that. Through advocacy and mobilisation, we will demand that our governments invest in research and development, skills, as well as capacity development for young people to be engaged.
“We are in fourth industrial revolution, we don’t have the time to seat back. Therefore our business is not to lament but to contribute to moving the situation forward.”
Comrade Odigie further gave insight on other areas ITUC_Africa will focus it energy. His words; “AMKA Africa, which is the theme of this Year Congress is a clarion call for action, solidarity and a collective mobilisation and forward movement. We are going to be critical, deliberate and consistent in pushing our people to walk together towards ensuring the spaces for the attainment of a transform and prosperous Africa.
He reiterated, “We are interested in issues of human and trade union rights. Where we have failed or lost ground, we will reclaim the spaces. This is because Covid-19 has shown the increase of state power and the shrinking of human and trade union rights as well as civil liberty opportunity and spaces.”
“We have been talking about addressing poverty in our continent. We are not just going to be asking for social protection, but will walk with our governments and point out the opportunities and how to attract resources to addressing social protection issues.
“That is why in this Congress, we have launched a debt campaign and we are going to push forward. Our campaign on illicit financial flow would be link to this campaign going forward.”
On ensuring unionization more workers in the continent, the new ITUC-Africa GS said, “I made a commitment on behalf of our members that in the next four years, we would attract four million new membership. Therefore organising is critical and central to us in this era. We will do so by making sure that our unions are attractive to people to join.”
He also said; “Our focus will also be on women and young people. We will make them understand why union is important. We would go to campuses and even secondary schools to catch them young.”
On the issue of migration which has been on the centre of ITUC-Africa engagements in the recent past, he said; “Our work on migration continues, but we want to increase our activities on social protection and social dialogue. The more we have the space to speak and bring our voices in addition to issues of workers, the more we are in a better place to better the situation collectively.”
On collaboration with other trade union confederations, Odigie said; “I talked about collaborating with the global south our brothers and sisters outside Africa. We want to go beyond and reconnect with them. More so , we want to improve our solidarity work with unions, organisations and countries that need them, talking about Western Sahara, Palestine , Cuba, Haiti, we would continue to do more collaborative work with them.”
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