By Reuben Abati
I was very skeptical when the current leadership of Organized Labour in Nigeria objected to the decision of the Federal Government to withdraw fuel subsidy and hand over the pump price of petrol to the forces of demand and supply, also known as market forces. Labour, represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), and their affiliates and privies in civil society, further threatened that they were opposed to the hike in electricity tariffs.
They issued a statement in which they railed
against neo-liberal policies, bad timing, and the insensitivity of government.
They made heavy weather out of the hardship that COVID-19 has imposed on the
people and why any form of additional taxation that could pressurize the people
would be utterly unacceptable. Deregulation of the downstream sector is not a
new subject in Nigeria. Removal of fuel subsidy is an old subject. Only the
dumb and the deaf would deny being aware of the persistent argument that a functioning
electricity sector in Nigeria would unleash the country’s energy and
potentials, through the values derivable therefrom: saving of costs, creation
of jobs, a value-added SME, an improved manufacturing sector and a happier,
more productive citizenry.
In 2012, when the Jonathan administration announced a full deregulation of the downstream sector and removal of fuel subsidy, Organized Labour aligned with opposition politicians and turned the argument on its head. They called out their troops and a thoroughly hypnotized political class, and workers’ community, fostered tension and instability in the system.
In 2016, the party that succeeded the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that is the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its leaders who had lied to Nigerians that there was no fuel subsidy in the country, but unconscionable theft, and that the Jonathan government was wrong, promptly increased fuel prices. They argued that a fuel subsidy regime was not sustainable: the same argument that they opposed in 2012.Their conspirators at the time in Organized
Labour kept mute. In 2020, with COVID-19 disrupting everything in the world
including relationships, with Nigeria suffering a debt and revenue crisis, the
collapse of fiscal buffers, and sheer adversity, the Federal Government decided
to pull the plugs. It blamed all of these factors and chose to announce a
removal of fuel subsidy. Pump price of fuel, benchmarked to the spot
price of crude oil in the international market jumped through the roof.
Nigerians groaned. The Federal Government argued that it was not left with any
other option. Everyone expected that Organized Labour would intervene.
But Labour didn’t quite do so. Groups in civil society had to picket the Abuja
Headquarters of the Nigeria Labour Congress to protest that the NLC should
speak up and call the people out on the streets, because life had become harsh
and hard for the average Nigerian.
After being pushed, a combined team of
the NLC and TUC finally announced that they would call out Labour on strike and
shut down the country. They gave the Federal Government stringent conditions: a
complete reversal of the hike in fuel price and electricity tariffs. Or else,
Nigeria would be shut down indefinitely beginning from September 28, 2020. I
was not impressed. I questioned Labour’s sincerity of purpose. I felt they were
just playing a game. The biggest tragedy that has befallen Organized Labour in
Nigeria is the thinking since 1999, that the leadership of Labour can be used
as a stepping stone to a bigger role in Nigeria. Labour leaders use their
positions to negotiate big benefits. They mouth progressive slogans and parrot
aggressive rhetoric but it is all a lie.
Under the military, there was a man called
Paschal Bafyau who used the ladder of Labour leadership to gain prominence.
Matthew Hassan Kukah in his book - Democracy and Civil Society In Nigeria
(Ibadan: Spectrum, 1999) considers him “a sell-out”. With the return to
democracy in 1999, the new Labour hero was Adams Oshiomhole of the Textile
Garments and Tailoring Union. He was a thorn in the flesh of the Obasanjo
administration. He could talk, dance and make Communist-style speeches. He
captured the public imagination. He would soon make a leap from being Labour
leader into partisan politics. He became Governor of Edo State for two terms.
He later became Chairman of Nigeria’s ruling party. He also became a Godfather
of Nigerian politics. Something tells me every Labour leader after Oshiomhole
wants to be like him. They too want to ride SUVs, and enjoy unfettered access
to the seat of power. They also want to be Godfathers in Nigerian politics. The
danger here is that this transmogrification of Labour Leadership in Nigeria,
sighted first with Paschal Bafyau and raised to another level with Oshiomhole,
created a new brand of Labour activism that contradicts norm, culture and
tradition in the Nigerian Left. This new generation of opportunistic Labour
leaders have devalued the heroism of the likes of Labour Leader No 1, Michael
Imoudu, Herbert Macaulay, Eskor Toyo, Wahab Goodluck, the Sunmonu brothers and
Frank Kokori. A compromised Labour leadership is a disgrace to the Revolution.
I find no better exemplification than the current Labour Movement in Nigeria
led by Comrade Aliyu Wabba, and the incompetent and hypocritical response to
Labour issues in the country.
In my view, the NLC and the TUC had no
business calling out anybody on strike. When they reluctantly did so, they were
playing politics and trying to appear concerned about workers’ welfare. This
new set of Labour leaders don’t care about the people. They are partisan
politicians. Civil society organizations continue to make the mistake that they
are dealing with persons of like minds who want to interrogate issues and offer
solutions. The truth is that the most conflicted community in Nigeria today is
what we broadly describe for want of a better term as the “Nigerian Left”. They
are just as worse as the conservatives and fascists; they claim to be defenders
of the people’s interests whereas they are just interested in themselves. I am
convinced that Nigeria’s Labour leaders knew as far back as 2012, that a subsidy
regime either in the downstream or the electricity sector was unsustainable.
They knew that getting Nigeria to work in an accountable manner was a useful
national priority. They cannot claim ignorance of the inefficiency, leakages
and wastages in the system that have, combined, cost Nigeria trillions of
Naira. The Jonathan administration tried to address this in 2012. Organized
Labour joined partisan politics and became an instrument. When their clients
took over in 2015, and brought up the same issue, they kept quiet. When matters
reached a head in 2016/2020, they were bound to be deceptive. And this is what
they have done. The strike action that they promised on September 28 was never
going to happen. It was unnecessary by the way. The so-called agreements that
they reached to justify their hypocrisy sound ludicrous. The communique that
Nigerians saw in the morning of September 28 is questionable. It may have been
designed to help Labour save face, but it merely exposes a Labour leadership
that should be a subject of ridicule.
Three meetings were reportedly held –
September 15, 24, 27, 2020. After the second meeting, Labour announced that it
would go ahead with the nationwide strike because it had reached a deadlock
with government. The NLC and the TUC ended up taking Nigerians for a ride. The
Communique that eventually signaled the cancellation of the strike exposes
their lack of rigour. The document says the Federal Government negotiators and
Labour leaders agreed on a number of issues. Let’s examine a few. On the issue
of the hike in electricity tariffs, the communique says the bipartite meeting
has decided to set up an ad-hoc technical committee to re-examine electricity
tariff reforms. This committee will sit for two weeks effective September 28. During
that period, “DISCOs have been directed to suspend the application of the
cost-reflective Electricity Tariff adjustments.” This is a totally
meaningless statement and it is surprising that someone like Joe Ajaero, a
leader of the National Union of Electricity Employees, who was named as a
member of the proposed Technical Committee was not awake enough to point out
the problem with this proposal. There are technical questions.
In the first place, the current electricity
tariffs are not cost-reflective, they are service-reflective. The new template
by the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) creates a
service-reflective template, problematic as it is, which ensures that houses,
factories and businesses which consume more electricity within an A, B, C, D,
range pay more than R1 band designated consumers at the lower end who still pay
N4. 00 per unit, thus creating a cross-subsidy regime. The proposed two-week
suspension of electricity tariff is also in every sense ambiguous. Is the FG
saying the DISCOs should not bill any house, factory or business for two weeks?
Is the President now going to ask the Ministry of Finance, the BPE, the NERC
and other relevant agencies to re-adjust meters and return to the old tariffs
for two weeks? Did anyone represent the Vice President who oversees
Privatization, the NERC, the BPE and the DISCOs at the meetings with Organized
Labour? At best, the Federal Government team merely threw the two-week strategy
at the unthinking Labour leaders just to buy time. Nothing will happen.
The Federal Government says it intends to
review the NERC Act and involve Labour in the electricity value chain. This is
meaningless. The Federal Government, States, and Local Governments own 40% of
DISCOs. Government can take part of its 40% to the Stock Exchange, but what
will be the value of whatever it expropriates? It is a non-issue. The leaders
of Organized Labour could not see through that trick. They were also told the
National Labour Advisory Council (NLAC) will be inaugurated before the end of
the year. And these greedy guys fell for it! If that Council remains moribund,
what can they do?
The other big issue was the deregulation of
the downstream sector. Our Labour Leaders were told that the Federal Government
will now fix Nigeria’s four petroleum refineries and that in fact the Port
Harcourt refinery will be 50% completed by December 2021. They were told there
will be timelines for delivery and even the national leadership of NUPENG and
PENGASSAN will be appointed into a Steering Committee and a Validation team.
The guys embraced this old, jaded lie as if they were being addressed by King
Solomon. How many times have we been told that Nigeria’s refineries will be
fixed? At a time, the FG wanted to privatize these same refineries. Labour
leaders opposed the initiative. Today, most of them are struggling to have
their children employed in a yet uncompleted Dangote Refinery and the modular
refineries by Walter Smith, NIPCO and the Edo State Government. They want
the same private sector that they disparage for their own private
benefits!
Labour leaders were further told that the
Federal Government will ensure the delivery of one million CNG/LPG Auto Gas
conversion kits, storage skids and dispensing units by December 2021 under
Nigeria’s Gas Expansion Programme. With the challenges of Corona Virus, this is
not possible. To even order the equipment and the accessories, or to build the
plant, not less than 18 months will be required. Who is going to reshape
the petrol stations? Many of the old vehicles on Nigerian roads cannot
also be converted. And even if so, who will bear the cost? We are told the
Federal Government will provide 133 CNG/LPG transit buses. Nobody manufactures
such buses in Nigeria. They will have to be imported. In other words, apart
from taking care of the interest of Labour Leaders, the communique that ended
the proposed strike of September 28, also very nicely, provided an opportunity
for government officials to award contracts! There is also something in there
about a 10% housing allocation for Nigerian workers. This is mere wishful
thinking. Did anybody talk to Babatunde Fashola, SAN, the Minister of Works and
Housing before making this commitment?
They didn’t need to bother, of course, because
both Labour and the Federal Government negotiators knew that they were both
playing a game and taking Nigerians for a ride. Organized Labour, having
obviously embraced deregulation and market forces, should have raised other
questions that could be helpful to Nigerians as follows: If the Federal
Government is eliminating subsidy, what does it intend to do with its savings
from the downstream sector and the electricity tariffs? Can the savings
be used to fund education and healthcare under a mutually agreed framework?
Instead, Labour leaders were discussing buses and houses! They could also
have asked what the FG intends to do with savings in the electricity sector. Is
it possible to use the savings to strengthen Transmission infrastructure?
Instead, they were discussing how Labour leaders can become members of the
Regulatory Board!
The Government negotiators deserve our
commendation. They have done a good job of preventing a “worthless” national
embarrassment in the shape of a Labour strike in the same week that Nigeria celebrates
its 60th Independence Anniversary. They have also helped to expose the
incompetence and hypocrisy of the current Labour leadership in Nigeria. They
have also won an ideological war over the subsidy regime. Those Labour leaders
who grumble about neo-liberalism have now embraced it. Their lack of rigour,
clarity and intellect provides a strong case for an urgent reform of Labour
Leadership in Nigeria. Once upon a time, Labour used to be a strong voice in
this country. In those days, government controlled everything: Telcom, Banking,
Insurance etc, It was quite easy then to blackmail government, and use that as
a platform to become a national figure. The times are changing, indeed the
times have changed. Labour must reinvent itself or risk the tragedy of becoming
irrelevant.
*Dr. Abati is, former presidential spokesman, is syndicated
columnist and broadcaster
Labour and its leaders are no different from the population from whence they came and any anticipation that it will change will have to post date serious revolution in the polity. As far as I know labour leaders of port workers in the early eighties were given contracts to supply heavy machinery ( dozers and cranes) You know what that means. " the fault dear Brutus is in ourselves" Until the people learn to take decisive and positive actions as has happened and is happening in other countries they should not expect magic. You do nit reap where you have not sewn.
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