The most recent of the numerous humbling outings of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) with the Federal Government brings a Japanese saying to mind. The character, Tarō Nagazumi, the Japanese student in Mr. Jeremy Brown’s English language class gave life to the saying in one of their class works. Tarō in his characteristic, mature manner, stepped out of his desk, took the accustomed bow and gave the class what he said was old Japanese saying. He did that instead in response to a task Mr. Brown gave him – to tell the class a joke. This scenario is in one the episodes of the hilarious, legendary English sitcom, Mind Your Language.
Tarō said: “Man who is wooing a girl on the hillside knows that they are not on the same level.” Take this saying anyhow you wish, but one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: Nigerians and their Federal Government are on a steep hill in this uneasy relationship of theirs. The people are on the hillside with this government and the experience of the NLC and TUC on Wednesday is a sign that we don’t really matter in the estimation of this government in our scrappy and bumpy relationship. The NLC and TUC representatives were shown how irrelevant they are. Yet again, the two unions representing hordes of Nigerian workers were told – albeit without words – that they are in an uneven relationship in which the government has both the knife and the yam.
The reports were that NLC and TUC walked out of their meeting with the government because government offered a paltry and annoying N48,000 as the new national minimum wage when weighed against N615,000 they had tabled before them. NLC and TUC said the offer was not just ridiculous and “significantly short” of the expectations of Nigerian workers, it was also an “insult to the sensibilities of Nigerian workers.” NLC and TUC therefore walked from the meeting. That was the second time they would walk in a space of two weeks because there was an attempt to discuss this touchy issue on April 29.
However, it is surprising that our leaders in the labour unions are just getting to know or see the hands of insult that had always been extended to them by the government. Even if nothing from the early days of fuel subsidy yanking told them this, their screams before the payment of self-created wage award to cushion the effects of the action should have done that. The non-verbal codes given by the government were so loud and resounding. The labour leaders should also remember that they had to angrily end their meaningless meetings with the chief of staff to the president, Femi Gbajabiamila, at some point. Their question then is still relevant today: What are the gains of all those meetings? Since President Bola Tinubu constituted and inaugurated the tripartite committee on minimum wage in January through Vice President Kashim Shettima, what are the key take-homes after four months? What are those things the committee can point at as its achievement so far?
The new minimum wage committee is made up of representatives drawn from government, including state governments; the organised private sector and, of course the labour. It was tasked by Shettima at that inauguration on January 30 to arrive at a new minimum wage speedily. Four months after the commencement of their meetings, things appear to have fallen apart among the NLC, the TUC and all the other stakeholders. If the government had seen the organised labour as a partner rather than an appendage, there would have been a difference in all that is currently going on in this minimum wage issue.
The Federal Government has not just taken the NLC and TUC as unnecessary irritants, it has also called the Nigerian workers monkeys. That is why it has offered them peanuts. The NLC itself has been so debased that Nigerians can no longer recognise the once vibrant union that kept government on its toes. The deconstruction and eventual destruction of this once feared labour centre began not long ago and we are now all used to a union that is better known as a toothless bulldog. After Adams Oshiomhole had become governor and moved to ‘the other side’, the NLC literally lost its teeth and was subsumed under government. It appeared just like the NLC through Oshiomhole gave their secret codes to the powers that be. This lack of verve and fight gave rise to the total loss of confidence in the NLC and TUC by Nigerians. Now, with labour out of the way, there is no other shelter for Nigerians from the scorching government, except if the new minimum wage issue revitalises NLC and TUC.
Meanwhile, the same government that is doing monkey business with the labour and Nigerians, is currently paying N30,00 as minimum wage and N35,000 as ‘Wage Award’. Add wage award to minimum wage and it turns out that the least paid Federal Government worker currently earns N65,000. One then wonders where the N48,000 is coming from. A rough answer to this puzzle might be that the government is coming from one ridiculous extreme to watch Labour dance its macabre N615,000 dance at the other extreme. Let us hope that they would meet somewhere in the middle.
Meanwhile, it is understood that the government is wary of its purse, which ordinarily should have been swollen by the gains of the subsidy removal. Until we understand what is really going on, we will keep asking like lay men: Since the government now has more money to share trillions monthly, why do we still have to dip our hands into the pensions fund in such a way as to break the law establishing the account? What real investment plans are there in this move as announced by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun?
In simple terms, this is indeed a dangerous back pass and Nigerians must rise against it as they rose against the cyber security tax. Thankfully, the labour unions have spoken up. We hope they would not just end it at speeches but “show workings”.
We remember that Tinubu’s government stood strong on their bully pulpit, thumping their chest that removal of subsidy on petrol would attract investors. It sounded sexy and attractive until it didn’t meet government’s expectations. Are we still hopeful? They also claimed that floating of the Naira or the parallel market would help. As things stand, has that not disappointed too. Now, with no liquidity, they’re eyeing old people’s and young people’s retirement savings. They’ve smelt the honey pot and it must therefore be raided. Labour unions are claiming that seventy percent of the money in the account has already been spent. Nigerians must find a way to understand why our government is such a money-guzzling mechanism with no restraint. It will interest us if our dear Minister Edun or any of those with him in our country’s financial firmament could explain why we spend so much money while we make so little. Why are we fixated on only available funds rather than device innovative means of attracting funds other than taxing the already over-taxed poor Nigerians? Explanations to these would ease our minds and earn our support to use our pension funds. Meanwhile, we mourn…
and then