Union hails Buhari’s re-election, urges him to complete unfinished projects

The Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), has congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari on his re-election, urging him to complete projects that had yet to be completed.

The General Secretary of the union, Mr Frances Akinjole, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview on Thursday in Lagos that Buhari’s victory has strengthened democracy in Nigeria.

NAN reports that Buhari, who ran on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), garnered 15.1 million votes to defeat his closest rival, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 11.2 million votes in Saturday’s Presidential Election.

Akinjole said that although the president had achieved remarkable achievements in the past four years, more needed to be done especially in completing the unfinished projects.

“I want to believe that the re-election of Buhari will be a government of continuity of projects that had yet to be completed.

“It is our hope that this government, having been elected for another four years, will be able to complete them.

“I want to believe that the president will not want to abandon the good projects this government had embarked on.

“Even the projects he started when he came into power and what he met half done, he has been making every endeavour to complete,” he said.

Akinjole said the government should not revisit the concessioned airport projects, because the unions have yet to agree to it.

He said the unions in the sector do not want to have the feeling that this government might want to reopen the issue since the president was no longer seeking for another term.

The official said even if the government wanted to go ahead with it, the government should give them a practical assurance that the workers would not be negatively affected.

He said the unions were aspiring for the development of the airports so that they could meet with the international standard.

Akinjole said: “We aspire for the development of our airports because we want them to be rated among the best in the world.

“We want an airport where there will not be emergency shutdown of power supply because we have experienced such in recent times.

“We want the infrastructure to be further improved and the runways to be properly maintained. Our personnel should be trained and retained.

“Our international wings are the first points of call for any foreigner coming into our country and if this government believes more in foreign direct investment, it should do more in uplifting the faces of our various airports.

He advised the government to focus on constructing new airports because the country still had many airports that were not viable.

According to him, the government should rather try to improve on the existing airports that are non-viable.

Akinjole said the union’s main aspiration for the aviation industry was to allow its workers to be unionised.

He said the union would work with the Ministries of Labour, as well as Transportation (Aviation Sector) , to ensure that interested workers that want to join labour unions were allowed to do so without any intimidation.

“We will do everything possible to make sure that our Labour Laws are amended progressively, to favour the rights of workers in the country.

“These amendments should be done in collaboration with the ministry of Labour,’’ he said. (NAN)