The signals don’t look good and it would be safe to conclude that the storms are gathering and tension rising over the vexed issues of fuel subsidy removal, palliatives and workers’ new minimum wage. Except something positive happens Nigeria may witness a spate of strikes by organized labour and protests by the masses similar to
The signals don’t look good and it would be safe to conclude that the storms are gathering and tension rising over the vexed issues of fuel subsidy removal, palliatives and workers’ new minimum wage. Except something positive happens Nigeria may witness a spate of strikes by organized labour and protests by the masses similar to the one staged in 2012 against President Goodluck Jonathan. Something like that took place in Benin, Edo state and like burning bush fire may soon catch on in other states and conflagrate into something difficult to control.
Already, different tunes are beginning to be played on the issue of workers minimum wage by Nigeria’s political actors. The National Economic Council, mostly populated by the 36 state governors at its meeting last week, resolve to revisit the issue of minimum wage and condition of workers, without reprimanding some of the states that are yet to give effect to the last approved minimum wage of N30,000.00 approved in October 2019 while negotiations for a new minimum wage were due to being in the last quarter of this year. The current minimum wage will expire in February, 2024
But beyond the scheduled negotiation for discussions on the new minimum wage, the Nigeria Labour Congress was jolted into a frenzy with the twice astronomic increases in the price of premium motor spirit, otherwise known as petrol in less than two months of Tinubu’s Presidency. There are economic indications that the prices are yet to reach the bottom. In anger, the President of the NLC, Comrade Joe Ajaero, issued a statement last week accusing the federal government of insecurity on the twin-issue of palliatives and minimum wage increase. He stated that all the agreements proposed, leading to different committees to look into issues appear to have been breached as nothing had happened since then.
On its part, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has given the federal government the next two weeks to reach agreement on negotiations or face workers’ protest. Specifically, the union said if after August 19, nothing tangible was concluded, it would be compelled to take further action to protect workers and the masses of the country from being subjected to unending hardship. The TUC wants government to embark on quantifiable cut in cost of governance, the Congress said both federal the government and the states should come up with harmonised palliatives that is verifiable and will be implemented with agreed time frame.
“Government gave a timeline of eight weeks, beginning from June 19, and if you do your calculation, eight weeks is going to be end by August 19. So far we have stayed more than one month and we felt that we are not going at the speed we anticipated and we want the government to fast tract action to ensure that between now and next two weeks all the committees must have submitted their report so that the Presidential Steering Committee can conclude its work immediately because we cannot continue to blow big, big grammar while Nigerians are suffering and people are trekking long distances to work,” President of the TUC said while addressing the press in Abuja on Monday.
There are ominous signs that the nation may witness an era of incessant strikes and protests over wage increase in the foreseeable future. As it does not appear the National Economic Council and the Tinubu government are too convinced on the exigency of a review of the minimum wage and enhanced palliatives. But “the NEC meeting resolved to support enhanced engagements between the state governors and the leadership of the labour unions across the states and proposed the provision of cost-of-living allowances to be paid to civil servants in both the state and the federal civil service” a statement from the office of the vice President, as Chairman of the Council said after the meeting. Since then, only two states (Kwara and Ogun) have taken steps so far.
But the bubble may burst soon as tension continues to grow across the land and the pain of fuel subsidy removal deepens. More and more people can now barely make ends to meet. Labour has said what Nigerians desired right now was for the government at the national and state levels to implement policies that would lead to reduction in cost of living rather action that would inflate it. To cushion the effect of the excruciating pains on its members, the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has asked the Federal government to increase the minimum wage of workers by 300 percent. The Local governments are not even represented at the National Economic Council Meeting.
NULGE in a communique at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Abuja on Thursday, also advised the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration to invest the $800 million World Bank loan in mass transit, alternative energy provision, vocational skills acquisition centers for the youth and women and as well as automobile spare parts companies to discourage importation. Considering the hardship brought about by the removal of fuel subsidy on Local Government Staff, it is the position of NULGE that there should be 300% rise in the minimum wage for all Local Government workers and other public servants including private sector workers.
In a carrot and stick review, NULGE NEC commends the governors Ondo, Ekiti, Osun, Delta, Edo, Ogun, Jigawa, Akwa Ibom, FCT and Katsina States for implementing fully the N30,000 minimum wage. We specially thank the government of Edo for going beyond the limit by paying N40,000 minimum wage to workers in the local government. It also condemns the action of the State governments of Cross River, Rivers State, Anambra, Imo, Enugu, Kaduna, Kogi, Kwara, Adamawa, Sokoto, Yobe, Borno, Abia, Bayelsa, Gombe States for non implementation of the N30,000 minimum wage. The worst of them all; Zamfara State, yet to implement even N18,000 minimum wage.”
It is bad enough that some states are yet to pay the minimum wage, on its part the Nasarawa Labour Congress (NLC) has rejected the partial implementation of the N30, 000 minimum wage to be enjoyed by workers only on grade levels one to six in the state. Its Chairman, Comrade Yusuf Iya, said in Lafia that the union was dismayed on why the government only decide to implement a minimum wage for workers on grade levels 1-6 without the corresponding consequential adjustments for other grade levels. He said this negates the principles and procedures of minimum wage implementation but showed that the government was economical with its position on the worker’s welfare.
Minimum wage negotiations between organised labour, Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA), and the Federal Government ought to resume in the last quarter of this year. General Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Emmanuel Ugboaja, said that much at the last International Labour Conference (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland. He blamed the governors for debasing the national minimum wage by declining to implement the law. “Our governors have made a mockery of what a national minimum wage ought to be, by reducing it to their own definition of what they are willing to pay workers. Governors have reduced salary payment to a privilege. No. That cannot be”.
Some states have started paying the sum of N10,000.00 to public sector workers as palliatives to cushion the hardship. But that intervention amounts to tokenism in the face of what has happened to prices of goods and services in the market place. Attending to the formal sector alone is giving succour to a fraction of the population of their people. The Tinubu government has to buckle up before the fuel subsidy removal robs it of all goodwill of Nigerians. There’s already a veiled comparison of Tinubu’s government with that of the immediate past President Buhari and some of the people are clamouring for a return of Buhari. The import of this is that their pain was less under Buhari’s administration despite a verdict of non-performance on his administration.
