Comrade Lateef Idowu Oyelekan, the National President, National Union of Food Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE), in this interview with DOYIN ADEOYE, speaks on diversification, economic recession, casualisation of workers, importation of beverages and confectionaries and governors’ inability to pay workforce, among other issues.
WHAT challenges did you meet on ground when you came on board in 2008 as the president of the union?I met a lot of challenges on ground. First, we started on zero level, as the only tangible thing we met was the union’s secretariat. Besides that there was crisis in the union, so I ensured that peace reigned supremely among all and sundry before any other development.
I also called for a natural reconciliation committee to know the cause of the problem in order to proffer a lasting solution to it. Some aggrieved members complained that they have not benefited from the union, while others said they had benefited.
Meanwhile in 2008, we called for present and past leaders and those that had not benefited, and we gave each a brand new car. All the factional members were united and their prayers for the company is what is moving the union forward today.
Why did you union venture into hotel business and table water production?A good leader must have a focus and vision. We make diversification because it serves as alternative sources of funds to finance the union’s programmes and activities besides payment of staff salaries and other fringe benefits. Again we can no longer depend solely on check off dues to survive as a modern day industrial organisation.
The labour must be an independent union, and especially now that we are having a dwindling economy, all these things are what we have prepared for long time ago. We are also increasing the workforce day-in-day out.
How has the economic recession affected your company?
We have a factory where we produce table water, so it affects us adversely, because we depend on electricity to survive. We always have erratic power supply, that means we must depend on generator. We spend about N7.5 million alone on diesel on a monthly basis. Again, we are hotelier, so we must put on light for our customers 24 hours each day. We spend money on the most important things in the company and cut less important things for us to survive this economic hardship.
As a producing company, how did you manage the issue of importation of beverages and confectionaries that can be produced locally?We do not need importation of beverage and confectionaries in Nigeria. Government should provide basic amenities such as regular electricity and infrastructures.
Again, these importations are killing local industries and reducing their abilities to create jobs. Nigerian products are the best in the world, in terms of the quality.
All those imported beverages have limited life span and their life span is six months, but those produced in Nigeria are always fresh. And NAFDAC can not see everything, that is why those people that drink from the expired products die everyday. Federal Government must put an end to this trend, because Nigerian can produce more.
What has NLC done to prevent casualisation of workers in the country?
Casualization of workers is slavery; it is bad that some companies are using university graduates as casual workers. How do they expect the industry and the nation to grow? Federal Government as well as the Ministry of Labour is against it.
Moreover, casualisation of workers is an anti-labour practice; contract staff in direct defiance of numerous extant local and international labour laws.
Such ugly trend is where employers refuse workers to freely join industrial unions of their choice in the workplace, and by so doing, they are denying the workers their right. Federal Government must let all the expatriate investors be aware that they must treat all Nigerian workers with dignity and respect. If they cannot conform to the law of the land, they can leave.
What is NLC doing to adrress the inability of some governors to pay workers’ salary for months?
What some of the governors are doing is criminal. For employers inability to pay his employees is a crime against God and humanity. Any governor that cannot pay his workers should resign and leave the office. They should make sacrifice of their security allowances in paying workers’ salary; most of their children are not in Nigeria.
Can you imagine both husband and wife as government workers? And they have not been paid their salaries for six months, what would they eat? Many workers have died and they are just been punished for what they have not done.
It is slavery and criminality. Any governor that cannot pay his workforce is increasing poverty and hunger in the land and must be blamed for bad things happening in their domain.
What is your take on the anti-corruption crusade by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration?
I am in support of it as well as the NLC, this is the time to put an end to this epidemic trend in the country.
The money that belongs to you and I have been diverted into individual accounts. There cannot be infrastructure in the land and the citizens cannot enjoy their life. Let us wage war against corruption so as to revamp our economy to a better standard.
What role do you think agriculture plays in revamping our economy?
There is need to look inward, instead of depending solely on petroleum as our main source of revenue. We should venture into agriculture as it will bring employment opportunities to our teeming youth.
Federal Government should invite specialists from Israel, who could train our graduates to major in agriculture.
More to that, let them specialise either in food production and animal rearing. These will boost our economy rapidly. I remember in early 60s and 70s, the country used to export cash crops like cocoa from West, cotton and groundnut from the North and coal from the East. These had been a major source of our revenue. Let us start again.
How do you think government can tackle the issue of poverty ravaging the country ?
It should provide basic infrastructural amenities such as good road network, stable electricity supply and the likes, as these will enable it to revamp the moribund industries in the land, with a view to creating employment opportunity to all and sundry.
Let me tell you that if people can eat three square meals per day, and they can pay their house rent easily, as well as send their children to school, poverty will be drastically reduced in Nigeria.
If everybody is engaged in one work or the other, then there will be no need to engage in social vices. An idle hand is a devil’s workshop. Issues of militancy, the avengers, bomb attacks, kidnapping and vandalisation of oil pipelines will be a thing of the past in the land.