EDITORIAL: FG’s rigmarole with NLC/TUC over wage increase bodes ill

PREMIUM TIMES

For the umpteenth time, the Federal Government and organised labour could not resolve the issues that arose from the removal of fuel subsidy, during their meetings last week. The deadlock has set the stage for a possible prolonged national strike. The Nigeria Labour Congress’ (NLC) 21-day ultimatum to this effect ended on Friday. Its ally, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) is also bristling for a showdown, as its two-week ultimatum to the government also lapsed last Thursday.

Instead of pragmatism and decisiveness guiding government’s action, it has resorted to brinkmanship with its divide-and-rule tactic, involving separate serial meetings with the two labour groups. Its insincerity stuck out again in the Minister of Labour, Simon Lalong’s demand for another two weeks from the TUC for the Federal Government to iron out certain issues. The NLC had staged a protest, a two-day warning strike, and now, its latest signal of a total strike. Apparently, the government’s stalling on a justifiable wage increase demand, such as the present’s, is a sure bet for industrial anarchy. This is the kind.

President Bola Tinubu undoubtedly erred by removing petrol subsidy on his first day in office. A priori consultations with labour and putting in place measures to alleviate the anticipated pains are what responsive governance requires, in view of a policy change that would bear huge socio-economic strain and consequences on the people. This is the fourth month since the subsidy removal came into force and wages have remained the same, while a whirlwind of economic hardship is sweeping across the country.

Brent Crude sold for $95.24 per barrel on Tuesday at the international oil market, which means that the price of fuel at N620 per litre, even much more in some places, will head further north. Fuel marketers have begun to make eerie forecasts in this regard. As the Federal Government covertly spent N169.4 billion on fuel subsidy in August, to steady the price at N620 per litre, as one national newspaper reported on Thursday, citing a Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) document, the underbelly of the policy it exposes needs to be looked into. The value of the naira has largely been eroded by inflation, as its daily free-fall hit over N1,000 to $1 in the foreign exchange market last week. Latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) put inflation in August at 25.8 per cent; transportation jumped to 27.1 per cent; and food inflation was at 29.34 per cent.

Specifically, the NLC/TUC demands include a 200/300 per cent wage increase; making the refineries to work to reduce the costs of petroleum products; tax exemption for certain categories of workers; fast-tracking the availability of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and its technology as a cheaper alternative energy source to petrol; and the Federal Government’s effective monitoring of the states’ implementation of the N5 billion worth of palliatives to mitigate the effects of subsidy removal. Also, labour demands for the government to meet the needs of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), among which is a N1.3 trillion injection into the system for its revitalisation, as part of the pact reached in 2013; and the release of a N70 billion loan to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to stimulate the economy.

Fuming at the end of the ineffectual meetings, the NLC boss, Joe Ajaero said, “They asked for eight weeks, we gave them. They asked for two weeks, we gave them… You can see that there was no agreement on any issue; there is no CNG anywhere and refineries are not working. Neither has anything been done on the issue of wage award, cash transfers or the ASUU issues.” His TUC counterpart, Festus Osifo, was no less indignant. He rejected the minister’s request for two more weeks to be given government, and insisted on a categorical statement on wage award this week, after the president’s return from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting. With the prospect of nights of long knives in the coming days, if the government continues its dilatory style, Ajaero and Osifo have their jobs well cut out.

The outcome of the last negotiations was not unexpected though. Higher levels of meetings, which involved the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila; Senate President, Godswill Akpabio; and a Presidential Committee to fix new wages, had been held without any success. If these engagements ended in fiascos, it is doubtful if the new labour minister has the requisite experience and expertise to find a solution to the impasse. His promise that government would address the grievances in “a just and equitable manner,” is quite clearly an attempt to equivocate and obfuscate.

People are hungry and impoverished; and daring to be on the wrong side of the law in order to survive. Nothing captures this anomaly better than the looting of a bus loaded with bags of rice on the highway in Ibadan, two weeks ago. The hungry folks mistook the consignment for the much-anticipated palliatives. In Ondo State, an APC Ward Chairman is recorded on video assaulting a female Commissioner recently, over disagreement on how rice palliatives should be shared. In Adamawa and Taraba states, warehouses with rice, maize and other relief materials had earlier been broken into and looted.

Government should not be deluded into believing that its bifurcation of organised labour is a positive strategy. No! The TUC boss, Osifo, underlined this fact when he warned that the decision of one union alone – the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASON), an affiliate of the NLC – to go on strike, could cripple the economy. This is not a crucible an economy in dire straits like ours should be subjected to at this time. Therefore, as the president braced for the job on 29 May, with the entreaty to Nigerians: “Don’t pity me. I will live up to expectations,” now is the time for him to walk the talk.

Make no mistake about it; the task is gargantuan, typified in his recent confession of being frightened by the bloating payroll of federal workers. When those of the 36 states are added with the expected wage increase, it becomes a double whammy for his administration and the country at large. But the fiscal burden this evokes can be made lighter by doing one thing: going for broke in recovering public funds that are in private pockets and implementing the Steve Oronsanye report on the merger of MDAs. A good example has been set in public debt recovery, with the N5.2 trillion, The Project Light House Programme of the Federal Government, domiciled in the Ministry of Finance, collected when it swooped on 5,000 debtors to 10 MDAs.

PREMIUM TIMES has repeatedly drawn government’s attention in previous editorials to unrecovered oil revenues in excess of $100 billion, documented by the Muhammadu Buhari regime, and contained in NIETI’s annual reports, a Supreme Court judgement, alongside fuel subsidy rackets, non-payment of tax by 6,772 billionaire bank account holders, disclosed in 2018 by then FIRS Chairman, Tunde Fowler, and much more. Having rolled up his sleeves already, to keep silent on already identified revenue leakages in the oil sector, as the Buhari regime did, will be complicitous and most unpatriotic.