By Amos Tauna
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has said that with the present economic recession Nigeria is faced with, it has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.
Nigeria Labour Congress also revealed that Nigeria was graphically captured in the recently released 2016 ranking of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)and Human Development with the Index showing that Nigeria was ranked 152nd out of 188 countries.
This was revealed during the 2017 Worker’s Day Celebration at the Nigerian Union of Teachers NUT Secretariat in Kaduna, northwest of Nigeria on Monday, in a paper presented by the National President of NLC, Comrade Ayuba Wabba.
Represented by the Kaduna State Chairman of the NLC, Comrade Adamu Ango, the National President said that with average life expectancy of 54.5 years, Nigeria has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world, adding that Nigeria was ahead of just 8 other countries.
He stressed, ”In the area of infant and maternal health, the United Nations Children’s Emergency fund, UNICEF, found that every single day, Nigeria losses about 2,300 children under five and 145 women of child bearing age.
“This makes our country the second largest contributor to the under – five and maternal mortality in the world.”
While speaking on the recession, he said that the on-going recession had affected and provoked all manners of reaction and responses from various sectors of the economy including organised Labour.
“The change is more of negative than positive, as pensioners are dying in thier respective homes due to failure of government to pay them as at when due. “Our educational sector has continued to decline as a result of poor funding and crisis caused by government’s penchant for not honoring collective agreement.
“It is a well-known fact that our Healthcare delivery system in the country is in a state of shambles. Poor funding by all tiers of government and corruption in the Healthcare system are some of the reasons responsible for the state of things.
“In the last 12 months, we have witnessed serious deterioration in the administration of pension in the country,” he lamented.
