- Shagari, Balarabe, Rimi for Posthumous Honours
AS COMRADES, compatriots and the family of the late iconic Alhaji Balarabe Musa marked the third anniversary of his death, a call has been made for politicians to “reinvent politics of principles, sacrifices, incorruptibility and inclusion” that he represented while alive.
The late Balarabe Musa, the first democratically elected governor of Kaduna State, died on November 11 2020 at 83.
In a posthumous tribute in Kaduna on Saturday, the Director General of the Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies (MINILS), Comrade Issa Aremu, recalled that both the late Pa Imoudu, Labour Leaders Number 1, whom MINILS was named after, and Alhaji Balarabe were frontline nationalists who fought for Nigeria’s independence, and that they were democrats who believed that democracy is the road to good governance and socialism.
According to Aremu, Alhaji Balarabe, in addition to ensuring equitable distribution of national wealth through just taxation for the poor, also implemented Decent Work agenda favoured by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Aremu recalled that both the late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi and Alhaji Balarabe Musa were premier governors who declared May Day in 1981 as well as implemented minimum wage.
Comrade Aremu disclosed that as part of the 40th Anniversary celebration of the Labour Institute this year, the late President Shehu Shagari, who also commissioned the Institute in 1983, Balarabe Musa and Alhaji Abubakar Rimi would be conferred with post-humous fellowships of the National Institute for Labour Studies (fnils) for their commitment to decent work agenda for Nigerian workers. The Director General said in Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Nigeria, Africa and progressive world had lost an audacious, principled and selfless statesman, adding that the best honour to the late statesmen is for Nigeria’s ruling class was to reinvent politics of sustainable development and poverty eradication.
