State of the nation: Direct venoms to your elected representatives, you didn’t elect NLC, TUC Presidents —Esele tells labour critics

Peter Esele, the former President of Trade Union Congress of Nigeria and National President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) speaks on the persistent criticism trailing the contemporary leadership of the organized labour in the country, and warns of the consequence. He points out that the development has been there for long, while emphasizing that the old practice is a mis-direction of gun fire by Nigerians and advises those who want the present labour leaders to do the unthinkable, to direct their grievances to their elected representatives rather than labour. Labour Editor, SOJI-EZE FAGBEMI gives the details.

Oshiomhole and I were wrongly accused of compromise too

All these criticisms! That is why in the institution (labour), gradually we would not have anyone who will go on any strike. And the downside of it is that the people you think are knowledgeable, who you think are enlightened and will understand, can’t understand. Who wants to go on strike on the increase in fuel price? Oshiomhole did that, all people will say is that Oshimhole compromised. In our time, they still say we compromised. Meanwhile, the fulcrum of labour is based on a tripod: employers, employees, and government. So if I say I want N1 million and the employer is offering me N500,000, if at the end of the day I now get N700,000, in Nigeria they will say you are compromised. And compromise in Nigerian context means sell-out. Even in your marriage with your wife, you do compromise. In dealing with your children, you compromise but our understanding of the word compromise is negative.

In our time, President Jonathan moved it (fuel price) to N145, we brought it down to N97, they still said we compromised. They said why did you not take it to where it was. You now get the current leadership and because all these things get to people, they say fine, whatever you do, we are going to be insulted, so the current leadership may just decide that okay. Fine! One  day, I am going to write on why people don’t understand what all of these are about.

Obasanjo didn’t offer me to join PDP

I read that there was a time president Olusegun Obasanjo offered me to join the PDP. I read about it. There was no time Obasanjo asked me to join PDP. When people just make some assertions, they should be very sure of their facts. There was never a time. It was even President Jonathan that was trying to say that and I said no. I can’t join. When he said Obasanjo said that, I wasn’t there on that May Day rally; so Obasanjo and I would not have had any comment.

In Nigeria, the oppressed undermine their shining lights

If you say you want a society to change, one thing I have discovered about Nigerian is that those who are oppressed also undermine their shining light. That is the biggest problem. People go ahead to abuse Oshiomole. You find out it is within that labour confraternity or the social space. That is where we fight ourselves but you don’t see that from the bourgeoisie, they recognize who is good among themselves, they promote themselves, they populate themselves in that place. So once you have one labour person, people abuse them and call them names. Just like one journalist was talking to me, that was many years ago when I was PENGASSAN president. I wasn’t the TUC president then, he was saying something very negative about Oshiomole, that he has this, he has that and I said what do you mean about that? That is what you would also say about me  and he said you have worked in an oil company for so many years and I said no. Oshiomole, has he not worked in the textile industry for so many years? The fact is that they just believe that those who are in the movement don’t deserve anything. I just left Abuja yesterday and somebody was talking to me that even in your time we do hear you and I said, stop. He is a professor. He said during your time you addressed press conferences, you were at the top of issues and I said you people also abused me during my time, it was after I left you guys are now saying this. Being president of NLC or TUC, if you ask me, I enjoyed more when I was the president of PENGASSAN, I enjoyed PENGASSAN more because it is very clear how to negotiate. There are no politics involved.

Trade unions are set up first, to  protect its members

Now everytime everybody wants you as a TUC president to comment, it is always on fuel hike. What happens when our members lose their jobs? As I am talking to you now, in Access Bank, do you know how many of our members who have lost their job? Do you know how often we have to go, the president of ASSBIFI and co, they had to call, having known the Managing Director, we have to reach out? Nobody matched or protested on that for the members. The first foundation why union is set up is to  protect its members. As I am talking with you now 600 members’ jobs in Chevron are on the line. Is there any civil society group that has matched/protested on the streets to say why do you want to lay off 600 workers? I can be calling the oil companies where the jobs of the members are on the line; but because it’s now petrol and everybody buys petrol in their car, they now believe that is the reason why the labour movement was set up.

Leaderships operate under different dispensations

Another thing is that people are looking at the organisation in a civilian era compared to the military era. Kokori was who he was in the military versus others. In a civilian administration, it’s a different ball game. You can’t practice it the same way. In a military you know who the enemy is, in a civilian government you don’t know who the enemy is. If I decide to pour out things, there are some people who are governors here who want to use the labour movement against certain people for their presidential interest, but nobody knows that. We are talking about #Endsars now, when we protested in 2012, was it not an increase in petrol price we protested that turned to occupy Nigeria? Was it not people who took advantage of that and came up with occupy Nigeria and started drinking champagne and everything in Ojota? The same people who funded or paged that process (Ojota/occupy Nigeria), if we were not smart, wanted to hijack it; just that we went ahead of them and we were able to take it back. The same people are now the people that suffered #Endsars. They don’t know there’s objective side of life and the subjective side of life. Everybody has a different way of believing in God and I believe in the law of Karma. What you sow is what you reap. You can do certain things and think nobody is looking at you, you will pay for it. By the time you are paying for it, you will be wondering where this is coming from. I read  Father Kukah’s comments. The church as an organisation, what have they done? Have they built the moral compass of our society?

Nigeria’s situation is a collective failure, not a labour problem

All of us need to look at ourselves and tell ourselves the truth. This country is not where it is supposed to be. It is a collective failure. It’s not labour, labour has its own weakness but whether you like it or not, it shows how restless labour has been, that when anything is coming up, labour is the first one that people will call. Nobody is saying the church should have done this, no. That’s to tell you what labour has come to represent Nigerians.

PENGASSAN and NUPENG fed up, want subsidy to go since 2012

The way they hammer and go about this criticism, people would not know, before they increased fuel price in 2012, PENGASSAN and NUPENG were already fed up with the issue of subsidy removal coming up every time and they were on the verge, just let it go. That was what Buhari’s government has lashed on to. We are not going to get anybody from PENGASSAN or NUPENG to support the protest against subsidy removal. If those unions are not supportive, what do you expect NLC and TUC to do? It is the industrial union that pushes the centre. If Ayuba says they want to go on strike and NUPENG says they would follow Ayuba, meanwhile, the tanker drivers are supplying the products, how effective would that strike be? Did you not see what happened when Buhari increased the price to N145, when NUPENG, PENGASSAN and the TUC backed out? Was Ayuba not on his own? Do you think that did not leave a psychological scar on him? It did. I know how many times we sat down and talked about this thing.  ASUU was the final one that nailed the coffin that he had to go. He couldn’t get the numbers not to go, at the end  of the day he went on that protest while others refused to join and NLC wasn’t satisfied with the outcome and what happened then. I was  one of those looking for a soft landing.

NLC and TUC President were not elected by Nigerians?

Labour is not Nigeria’s problem. Why hold labour leaders to say labour is keeping mum? Did you elect labour leaders? In a civilized society, the people that you elected are the people you hold responsible. Labour leaders are accountable to the workers who pay dues. So as a Nigerian if things are bad, the people you go to are those you elected. There are senators that you elected that you pay their salaries, there are members of the House of Representatives that you elected and you pay their salaries, there is a president and there are governors that you pay their salaries. If things are getting difficult, it is not labour leaders that you go to. It is these people that you elected.

I will say yes, the increase is insensitive but who are those that are responsible for it, they are the policy makers. The policy makers are those in the National Assembly, those in the various state houses of assembly, those who you elected as governors and president. So, why each time things don’t go well, all everybody does is to hold labour leaders responsible. Did you elect labour leaders? Is it Nigerians that elected NLC President or TUC President? It is only the workers that can hold Ayuba Wabba and Quadri, who are both Presidents of NLC and TUC to account. The primary responsibility of NLC and TUC is to Nigerian workers. It is not to the generality of Nigerian people. Those who are  responsible for the generality of Nigerian people are the President, the governors, the Senators and the House of Representatives. So, those are the first people you cry to or you protest to and not NLC and TUC. We better get that straight. And sometimes when I hear people that I have tremendous respect for, who should be focusing on elected leaders, policy makers, cast aspersions on labour leaders, it is very painful. It shows that people don’t really understand how labour works.

Growing criticisms will force labour to withdraw and play its original role

The more criticism they throw  into the movement, the more the movement is going to withdraw into its shell and can play its original role. Its original role is for workers, it’s not for protests that politicians are just waiting in the corner to hijack. In the other parts of the world, when you see politicians taking advantage of protests, they take the advantage of protests in terms of policies. They will tell you when we get into power this will be our policy. But in Nigeria when you do a protest politicians go, pay people to undermine, destroy, and loot. Are you telling me that the burning of Tinubu’s TVC and the Nation Newspaper is coincidence? It’s not. It was carefully planned. So, labour leaders are not fools, they are also aware of all these intelligences. They look at what is happening in the country, they cannot contribute and be parts of those that will destroy the society. That’s not the way the organised labour is meant to act. So it’s easy for everybody to say go and do your bit. There is this saying that when one finger points to someone the remaining four point to you.

What I ask myself is, what am I doing? How am I making life easy for other people? One thing I have learnt about Nigerians is that we are very good talkers, we can talk but if you now look at our actions, you can’t marry them together.

People don’t understand the fundamentals of fuel price increase

They said the price has been increased to N170, it is going to get to N200 plus. It’s just starting, because people don’t even understand the fundamental why the price would increase and that’s even why organised labour is in a precarious position. If the price of crude is falling, the price of petrol is low. When the price of crude is low, our economy is in a straight jacket and what the government does is that the benefits we would have enjoyed from the falling price of the crude, we would not enjoy it because the government doesn’t have the money. When the government doesn’t have the money, the first recourse is that the government will go ahead and devalue the currency. When you devalue the currency, the benefits of lower price of crude, we would not enjoy. That is where we are right now. As long as we do not  get enough foreign exchange and you devalue the currency, in January this year it was N308 to $1, at CBN rate. Now, it is N390 on the same CBN rate. How do you now buy cheaper crude and sell anything less than? That’s the challenge we are going to face. If only the government knew where to put attention, I don’t know why we cannot put N1 trillion on educational investment. Let us invest in the educational system, health and transport system, forget the rest. Just have the government that says this is the direction, forget the rest. With education we would fly in five to seven years if we just put our attention on it. This is where the world is going, that’s why India got to where they are today. Many years ago they sat down, let’s pick on IT, all over the places they invested so much money in it. Whether you like it or not, Indians are everywhere now. Microsoft, who’s the CEO? Indian. Check all the majors, Alphabet, Indian. Alphabet is the owner of Google, look for an area, invest in it.

Labour leaders have the right to join politics, can’t stay aloof

People can go ahead and accuse labour, but look at what everybody is doing. At the end of the day, people abused Oshiomhole. They abused this, they abused that, but if you say the best people you have, you do not align them to go in and play politics, because you feel like they should not be playing politics. Why are you complaining?

I knew what Sina Eluwoye (former PENGASSAN national President) used to tell me when I also tried my hands in politics. I have never carried PDP card even when I was TUC President with Jonathan. It was an ACN card I was carrying, and from ACN I metamorphosed to APC. Sina used to tell me, what are you doing there? But I always say, if all of us decided to stay off, why do we need to complain? But criticism is going to go that far, that we are going to have NLC President, TUC President, everybody would be aloof, they will just face their industrial union activities.

In the Labour movement, workers’ interests are paramount

The reason why a labour center or a labour union is formed is for workers’ interest. That is number one, all others are secondary but not for you to come up and be telling us that the only time we don’t agree is when fuel price has been increased. Our country is where it is today because it is a collective failure. Failure of leadership; failure of followership, failure of the various institutions. It is not just about Buhari. I’m telling you today, if we make you president in this country, with the way the system is configured, good luck to you.

People can go ahead and say anything, but we need to defend the institution. If what we do every time is criticism and batching, who is going to go there.

The current increase is insensitive

On the issue of the increase, I want us to look at it from the technical perspective. Ordinarily, it is because the government doesn’t want to hand off. Now, who is the only one bringing in the product, it is the government. Why should the government be the only one bringing in the product? If you say you have deregulated, take your hands off. To have that increase right now, yes, it is insensitive but for everybody to now say labour is keeping mum, it is not the way to go.

Result of the #EndSARS protest made me proud of the labour movement

Again, how can somebody says #EndSARS protest has actually confined labour to the dustbin. I have heard that several time, but what #EndSARS protest just told me, when I watched the protest and everything is that I was very proud of labour as a movement. How do you go and protest without leadership? We have never had anything like this. A protest without leadership, where we have lives lost, property destroyed. If we do that the second time, we would have no country. That one is certain. On what basis is the protest when the country is gone? Go to Benin now, I got a call yesterday, everyday there are robberies. There is no Police on the road because psychologically now, the Police too are afraid of their lives. So where are we?

NLC and TUC President were not elected by Nigerians?

Labour is not Nigeria’s problem. Why hold labour leaders to say labour is keeping mum? Did you elect labour leaders? In a civilized society, the people that you elected are the people you hold responsible. Labour leaders are accountable to the workers who pay dues. So as a Nigerian if things are bad, the people you go to are those you elected. There are senators that you elected that you pay their salaries, there are members of the House of Representatives that you elected and you pay their salaries, there is a president and there are governors that you pay their salaries. If things are getting difficult, it is not labour leaders that you go to. It is these people that you elected.

I will say yes, the increase is insensitive but who are those that are responsible for it, they are the policy makers. The policy makers are those in the National Assembly, those in the various state houses of assembly, those who you elected as governors and president. So, why each time things don’t go well, all everybody does is to hold labour leaders responsible. Did you elect labour leaders? Is it Nigerians that elected NLC President or TUC President? It is only the workers that can hold Ayuba Wabba and Quadri, who are both Presidents of NLC and TUC to account. The primary responsibility of NLC and TUC is to Nigerian workers. It is not to the generality of Nigerian people. Those who are  responsible for the generality of Nigerian people are the President, the governors, the Senators and the House of Representatives. So, those are the first people you cry to or you protest to and not NLC and TUC. We better get that straight. And sometimes when I hear people that I have tremendous respect for, who should be focusing on elected leaders, policy makers, cast aspersions on labour leaders, it is very painful. It shows that people don’t really understand how labour works.

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Weekly Review: Nigeria’s COVID-19 Infections On The Rise Again

Nigeria’s new COVID-19 infections increased again last week, Tribune Online analysis shows.

Last week, the 46th week of the pandemic in Nigeria, the country recorded 1,206 new infections (November 8 – 14), an increase when compared to the 923 cases recorded the previous week…

We Have Not Decided Yet To Call Off Strike — ASUU President

t is still uncertain whether the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will end soon as President of the union, Professor ‘Biodun Ogunyemi said there were certain steps to be taken to reach that final conclusion on the issue…

[ICYMI] Judicial Panel: I’m Unaware Nigerian Army Called Lekki Shooting ‘Fake News’ On Twitter – General

Brig.-Gen. Ahmed Taiwo, Commander of the 81 Division, Military Intelligence Brigade, Victoria Island has said that he was unaware that the Nigerian Army Headquarters had described the shootings at the Lekki Tollgate as “fake news” on Twitter…

USElection2020: Is It Trump Or Biden?

THE United States election between Republican and current President Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden takes place today, November 3rd and is on course to witness the highest turnout in a century with more than 95 million people already cast their ballots in early voting.

International Criminal Court Begins Probe Into Shooting Of #EndSARS Protesters In Nigeria

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has disclosed that it’s conducting a preliminary investigation into the recent #EndSARS protests in Nigeria, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on Wednesday.