A Tribute to Issa Aremu on Retirement as Labour Scribe
The IndustriALL Global Union’s fifty million workers in 140 countries has congratulated the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGWN) on the successful hosting of the 12th Quadrennial National Delegates” Conference in Abuja recently and the election of new national executive for the next four years.
The new Executive Council is headed by John Adaji as the President elected for the second 4 years term.
The high points of the 12th Congress were the adoption of the Secretariat report of activities in the past four years and the retirement of Comrade Issa Aremu as the General Secretary of the Union having served the union for 31 years, 8 of which as an acting General Secretary and 23 years as successively elected substantive General Secretary.
IndustriALL Global Union with headquarters in Geneva in a letter signed by it’s Secretary General Secretary Valter Sanches, singled out the Union’s former General Secretary for appreciation for his globally acknowledged service to the labour movement.
Comrade Aremu attains the statutory retirement age of 60 years January 8th 2021 remains IndustriALL Vice President and executive member of the Sub Saharan Africa region until it’s 3rd global Congress scheduled for Cape town South Africa in October this year.
The constitution of Textile Union makes the position of General Secretary elective of 4 years term which lasts 2024. Comrade Ali Baba, a Principal Assistant General Secretary in charge of Kano area of the Union was therefore appointed as the Ag.General Secretary of the union.
The outgoing General Secretary had since congratulated his successor whose appointment he said was “earned and deserved based on commitment, honesty, selflessness and faithfulness, loyalty to the Union” promising a smooth transition and sustainable progress of the Union. In spite of the challenges of factory closures and job losses, textile union had been adjudged relatively stable with peaceful record of successions at delegates conferences which often focused on issues that affect the workers and the industry rather than controversial issues of elective offices that had crippled the cohesion of many unions. The union had signed as many as 45 national collective agreements in its 40 years of existence without a national shut down of the factories. Labour observers commended comrade Aremu and his comrades for keeping the cohesion of the union which was once in turmoil in 1993 after an orchestrated violent attack on the union through fake report and rumors. To his credit he also led the union
Aremu held all critical positions from an Organizer to senior Deputy General Secretary. He was also two terms elected Vice President of NLC (2007-2015) and members of labour market institutions such as Micheal Imoudu Labour Institute, Ilorin, Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund ( NSITF), National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Labour Transport Service among others. He is the face of reindustrialization and revival of textile and garment industry campaigns.
Industriall Global Union specifically singled out NUTGWN for commendation on its campaigns to revive the textile and garment sector through support to the Federal Government of Nigeria’s Textile and Garment Policy. It pledges to support the union “for a sustainable policy framework for manufacturing and for the implementation of minimum wages, and the moves towards living wages and decent work”.
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In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, Nigeria was the home to Africa’s largest textile industry with over 180 textile employing some direct 650,000 workforce and indirect millions of cotton farmers, traders and garment workers, more workforce than the Federal government! The sector which contributed over 25% of the workforce in the manufacturing sector and as much to national GDP currently employs less than 10,000 organized workforce. The Union over the years has risen to intensify campaign for industrialization, uninterrupted electricity, against influx of smuggled imported and substandard products, lack of patronage of home-made goods, poor infrastructure, high taxation and interest rates and the depreciating value of the naira coupled with insecurity in parts of the country. President Muhamadu Buhari had initiated a number of new measures aimed at textile industry revival within the context of Textile and Garment (CTG) policy aims at reviving the value chains of cotton growing, Ginneries, spinning and weaving, printing and garments production. On Tuesday July 23 2019, the leadership of the union led by the President, Comrade John Adaji and General Secretary, Comrade Issa Aremu, mni and the Nigeria Textile Manufacturers Association (NTMA) paid an historic courtesy visit to the President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR.
The CBN under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele has taken a number of bold and commendable efforts to encourage patronage of local fabrics, the notable being the signing of an unprecedented Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Service Chiefs, Chief Executives of Uniformed Services, and textile/garment manufacturers on enforcement of Executive Order 003 on Support of Local Content in Procurement by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The MOU envisages that uniforms for navy, police, army, civil defence, immigration, customs, NYSC, road safety among others are sourced locally from the Nigerian CTG sector in pursuance of the administration’s drive towards economic diversification and creating jobs for our teeming population. Under the leadership of Comrade Issa Aremu, union made significant progress appreciable in organized the unorganized hundreds of thousands of self employed Tailors and Kampala makers in Lagos, Ogun, Kwara, Kaduna, Benue, Niger, Abuja, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kogi, Cross River, Edo, Imo, Jigawa, Taraba, Borno among others., the challenge remains making them financial membership.
Issa Aremu joined Textile Union as an organizer in 1989 at the request of former General Secretary and two terms President of NLC Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Aremu’s activism however dated back to his university days in ABU, Zaria and University of nh. An economist, he was also the pioneer Head of Economics and Research department of Nigeria Labour Congress ( NLC ) having served under two NLC Presidents namely Ali Chiroma and late Pascal Bafyau. He was the only Congress staff retained when Babangida military regime forcefully dissolved Ali Chiroma led executive in 1988 and appointed a sole administrator Chief Michael Ogunkoya. Comrade Aremu voluntarily resigned from NLC in 1989 under Pascal Bafyau “on ideological ground,” after which he joined the textile union. He is a recipient of numerous national awards including Member, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Plateau State; (SEC, Senior Executive Course 27) 2005; 2014 National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) recipient, Alumni Association of the National Defence College and the National Defence College, Nigeria Awards, 2014; Award by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment in collaboration with United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), 2013; Awards by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria, 2007, May 26, 2010; 2013; and Award by the Bank of Industry, 2011.
Aremu was a Two-term elected Secretary-General of the Alumni Association of the National Institute for Policy & Strategy Studies, AANI (2013 – 2017); Labour Delegate; 2014 National Conference and Deputy Chairman of the National Conference Committee on Civil Society, Labour, Youth and Sports. He was Kwara State 2019 Governorship CANDIDATE under the Labour Party of which he was a founding member. 2016 Fellow of the Bloomberg Media Leadership Initiative (A.L.I), Aremu is a columnist with Daily Trust over the decades and regular contributors to national and global issues in all platforms.
By PRNigeria
