All gloves seem to be off as organized labor leaders decided to upbraid Senator George Akume, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and leader of the government’s team negotiating the minimum wage crisis with organized labor, after they practically shut down the country last Monday, June 3rd.
As the verbal exchange between labor and government leaders rages on and Nigerians are engrossed in the drama, what seems to have been lost on the nation is the gravity of the dire consequences of shutting down the national grid by the obviously enraged and rampaging labor activists intent on bringing the government to its knees.
Has anyone considered the grave consequences of a scenario where those who forcefully took control of critical and sensitive assets of our country were non-state actors who have taken arms against our country, such as religious insurgents Boko Haram and ISWAP holding sway in the northern region, or sovereign state agitators like IPOB, ECN in the eastern flanks, and the Oodua Peoples Congress in the southwest axis, or environmental rights activists like Niger Delta militants?
That apocalytic situation could have happened last monday June 3.
At the risk of being labeled an alarmist, the scenario described above is a teachable moment for me regarding the minimum wage increase agitation by organized labor and the federal government’s effort at managing the crisis for an equitable solution.
To put things in perspective, it is appros that we reflect on the etiology of the current minimum wage crisis.
The first to literally draw blood in the war of words was SGF Senator Akume, whose verbal outrage was triggered by the reported loss of lives in hospitals nationwide when labor activists forced their way into the national electricity grid to switch off power supply nationwide. That action might have resulted in loss of lives of sick people who were on life support machines in hospitals, even as medical doctors who could have helped save lives were prevented from going into the hospitals to attend to patients.
It is believed that the rampaging labor activists enforcing the industrial action called by organized labor in Nigeria to force the government’s hand to increase the minimum wage from N30,000 to N500,000 (the initial demand, currently scaled down to N250,000), did cause avoidable loss of life. Not only did it result in loss of lives, but the economy of the nation also suffered enormous loss of income due to the two-day shutdown of the country, starting from the bureaucracy and economic space to the airspace, as airports were also shut down by the labor activists who were bent on causing massive disruption of a magnitude that would shake the government. The only occassions that our airspace has been shut down, to the best of my knowledge is when there has been a coup detat or the nation is at war.
Obviously displeased about the catastrophic consequences of the strike action that resulted in a practical shutdown of activities nationwide, the SGF accused labor leaders of economic sabotage and characterized their crime as treasonable felony.
SGF Senator Akume reportedly expressed his displeasure when executives from the National Council of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) visited him last Thursday, June 6th.
Below is how an obviously irritated SGF expressed his displeasure:
“Nowhere in the world has labor ever tampered with the national grid. It is treason! Treasonable felony is economic sabotage; you don’t do that,” he said.
“We are trying to rebuild the economy. The president is picking it up, and they want to destroy it. Of what use is that to all of us? That is not the way.” He concluded by saying:
“It is not that we are not working. We are working, and that is why we implemented the N35,000 wage, which is more than the minimum wage,” he said. “There are buses ready to be distributed, and soon, rice and other essentials will be available.”
Not taking the SGF’s umbraiding lying low, the leaders of organized labour have gone ballistic by pushing back via their mocking of the SGF by alleging that politicians, which is the ‘tribe’ to which the SGF belongs, are the real economic saboteurs:
“The SGF, we are sure, clearly knows those whose actions are treasonable and sabotage our economy.
“Those who loot our treasury around the country, those who divert public resources meant for hospitals and schools, those who are involved in foreign exchange round tripping, padding of budgets, and inflating contracts, including those who steal trillions of naira in the name of subsidy, are the real economic saboteurs who commit treasonable felony.
“These people are in costly agbada and drive in convoys all around the nation, occupying the corridors of power, and not innocent workers who are not slaves but chose to withdraw their services because of the inhuman treatment meted out to them by the government.”.
The thirty-six (36) state governors that lead the components that together constitute the Nigerian nation, who felt like (to borrow a popular local cliche) their hair was being shaved behind their backs in the sense that a national minimum wage that would be binding on them to pay at the sub national level was being discussed and decided without their input, had to join the fray.
In their statement, they expressed the following concern:
“The Nigeria Governors’ Forum is in agreement that a new minimum wage is due. The Forum also sympathizes with labour unions in their push for higher wages.
“However, the Forum urges all parties to consider the fact that the minimum wage negotiations also involve consequential adjustments across all cadres, including pensioners. The NGF cautions parties in this important discussion to look beyond just signing a document for the sake of it; any agreement to be signed should be sustainable and realistic.
“All things considered, the NGF holds that the N60,000 minimum wage proposal is not sustainable and cannot fly. It will simply mean that many states will spend all their FAAC allocations on just paying salaries, with nothing left for development purposes. In fact, a few states will end up borrowing to pay workers every month. We do not think this will be in the collective interest of the country, including workers.”
Expectedly, the governors have also become targets of the fiery darts and missiles of the angry labour unions.
They wrote:-
“We do believe that governors have acted in bad faith. It is unheard of for such a statement to be issued to the world in the middle of an ongoing negotiation. It is certainly in bad taste.
“As for the veracity of their claim, nothing can be further from the truth, as FAAC allocations have since moved from N700 billion to N1.2 trillion (thanks to subsidy petrol and naira subsidy removal by President Tinubu), making the governments extremely rich at the expense of the people.”
Furthermore, they bellowed:
“We are not fixated with figures but value.
Those who argue that moving national minimum wage from N30,000 to N60,000 is sufficiently good enough miss the point.”
As the popular aphorism goes, ‘a hungry man is an angry man’. There is no argument about the fact that Nigerian workers have been negatively impacted by the reform initiatives of the incumbent administration.
Even President Tinubu acknowledges that fact,hence he provided an interim remedial measure, which is the Federal Government award of N35,000 (strangely, it is not being talked about very much) as an extra bonus on the N30,000 minimum wage to workers pending when the amount to replace the one that has recently expired is agreed upon.
All over the world, labour union leaders have the reputation of being feisty, fierce, and ferocious. For instance,in the United States of America, the highly influential and powerful United Auto Workers (UAW) have been known to engage politicians in a hot exchange of words when demanding a wage increase.
The last showdown between UAW and their employers was in 2023, when they were demanding a 40% wage increase. Owing to the fact that the union is very influential and packs a significant voting punch, the current President of the US, Mr. Joe Biden, joined them in the picket lines and backed their agitation for a pay increase.
Unlike in the US, in Nigeria, the government is the highest employer of labour, so it bears the brunt of strike actions especially because it took on the unnecessary burden of fixing national minimum way as provided in a 2019 act.
But in the US ,strike actions are mainly taken against the private sector employers of labour who have the liberty of fixing their workers wages.
That Nigerian government fixes the minimum wages for both private and public sector worker to be uniform nationwide is a telltale sign of the abysmal level of practice of true federalism and lack of industrialization in our country.
In the United Kingdom, Baroness Margaret Thatcher, former United Kingdom, UK who Britons aptly tagged the Iron Lady owing to how she was able to tame the very vocal and influential labour unions that could significantly influence the outcomes of political party elections and as they were holding British politicians to a ransom, was hounded until her passage on April 8, 2013, and she was even disrespected by labour activists during her funeral.From the narrative above, labour activists all over the world are known to be impetulant and tempestuos.
Having put things in context, to give readers the opportunity to make a fair assessment of the crisis triggered by the negotiation for a new minimum wage characterized by hot verbal exchanges of vitriolic between the SGF , the organized labour currently happening in Nigeria and the carpeting of governors by labour leaders,let us examine the veracity of the accusation leveled by the SGF against the labour leaders that they have committed a treasonable felony by switching off the national electricity grid,which he pointed out as having not been done anywhere in the world.
On the other hand, what also needs to be tested for veracity by being put in the crucible of truth are the charges against politicians at both federal and sub national levels by the labour leaders, who are claiming that they did no wrong by plunging the nation into total darkness to drive home their demand for an increase in the minimum wage for workers and then accusing politicians of being the ‘real’ economic saboteurs.
So, I posed the question of whether the switching off of electricity from the national grid was a treasonable felony using Meta artificial intelligence, an AI tool, and below is the response:
“Labour unions do not have the right to switch off the national electricity grid as a form of strike protest. While labour unions have the right to peaceful strike actions, sabotaging or tampering with critical infrastructure like the national electricity grid is illegal and potentially dangerous.
Such actions could lead to serious consequences, including:
-Endangering public safety
-Causing widespread economic disruption.
-Damaging equipment and infrastructure
-Violating labour laws and regulations
Instead, labour unions typically engage in peaceful strike actions like:
Work stoppages
Picketing
Rallies
Negotiations
Unions may also explore other creative and lawful tactics to draw attention to their demands, like social media campaigns or public outreach efforts.”
In light of the forgoing, the SGF is right in his allegation that organized labour might have committed a treasonable felony offense by switching off the national electricity grid because it has had grave consequences for the economy of Nigeria and imperiled the lives of Nigerians.
Given the reality above, should the ongoing negotiation between government led by a justifiably miffed SGF and labor leaders fail to attain success before the expiration of the one week period of forbearance granted by organized labor when it suspended the strike for one week which ends Tuesday 11th June 2024; in order to prevent a re-occurrence of the treasonable felony offenses that occurred on 3rd June ,should government not take steps to protect our critical assets like the national electricity grid, telephone networks, water reservoirs, airports and sea ports among many other such critical infrastructure to make them as impregnable as Fort Knox to protect them from being easily breached as had happened on 3rd June?
The second teachable moment from the minimum wage negotiation to me is whether the labour leaders are correct in labeling politicians as the ‘real’ saboteurs when they made the statement.
As I have always advocated, and in alignment with the title of my column, which is also what I titled my latest book, “Leading From the Streets,” mass media platforms are sort of public opinion courts where everyone is free to act as litigants and appellants, as the case may be.
Put succinctly, we all have the right to present our cases in the courts of public opinion as lawyers do in courts of law. After pleading our case, it is left for the people of Nigeria, particularly those leading from the streets, to make the decision in the way that judges do in law courts.That is one way in which we will be putting the masses who are leading from the streets at the centre of leadership.
Ideally, that is the way it is supposed to be, as it would be in consonance with the tenets of and in alignment with the definition of democracy, which is: government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Arising from the above, and in the spirit of putting leadership in the hands of the people, it is only proper that we scrutinize the allegation by labour leaders that politicians are the ‘real’ economic saboteurs.
Going by the fact that Mr. Ahmed Idris, a suspended Accountant General of the Federation who is a public servant and not a politician, was arrested and arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for allegedly stealing a whopping N109 billion from the government treasury between February and December 2021, this renders spurious the claim by labour leaders that politicians are the ‘real’ economic saboteurs.
One is also curious to know if our labour leaders are also implying that civil servants are the ‘fake’ saboteurs and politicians are the ‘real’ saboteurs.
Before Ahmed Idris, another Accountant General of the Federation that Idris succeeded in office was Mr. Jonah Otunla. He is another civil servant, not a politician, who served as Accountant General of the Federation between 2011 and 2015 and was also alleged to have stolen about N26 billion from the federal government treasury.
But he refunded about N6.3 billion after being arrested by the EFCC, and he has been in court trying to make a case that, having made a refund of some of the looted funds, he has been discharged of all criminal and civil liabilities.
How about Abdulrasheed Maina, who was a public servant heading the defunct pension reform department of the government? He was given the mandate to sanitize the pension fund space that had become a cesspit of corruption, but he re-looted , as the court decided ,what he had recovered from looters and was convicted in November 2021 for stealing 2 billion naira belonging to pensioners after a two-year trial.
As adumbrated by one Sanusi Muhammad in a piece published in the Trojan News on December 3, 2023, wherein he identified a litany of acts of economic sabotage via financial corruption perpetrated not only by politicians, but also by civil servants, so civil servants are not absolved from being economic saboteurs. In fact, according to available records, civil servants are as culpable as the politicians that they are pointing their fingers at.
In any case, is it not telling that the indicted and convicted civil servants highlighted earlier are members of the ‘tribe’ of organized labour, comprising the umbrella body of civil servants, the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC), and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), headed by Joe Ajaero and Festus Osifo, who have been vocal in tagging politicians at both national and sub national levels as economic saboteurs?
Although it is trite, but worth recalling the fact that the indicted and convicted civil servants are colleagues of labour leaders who are expressing righteous indignation.The truth is that we are all swimming in the cesspool of corruption that equates with economic sabotage, so there is no need to express righteous indignation by condemning corruption only when agitating for a pay raise. Corruption should be tackled all the time.
How about creating an anti-corruption vanguard in government institutions to nip the crime in the bud? As the conventional wisdom goes,.
‘Corruption steals from us all’.
Institutions managed by civil servants ridden with corruption range from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSTIF), the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), the Niger Delta Amnesty Funds, as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
It is northworthy that all of the public agencies listed above have been associated with humongous fraud in the past several years.And strikingly, they are being led by public and civil servants who have been engaging in economic sabotage. These are crimes that they try to cover up by making incredulous claims, such as termites eating up invoices and snakes swallowing missing funds.
Is it not rather hypocritical that there is no evidence that labour leaders reprimanded or condemned how much more sanctioned in any shape or form the referenced economic saboteurs within their ranks that have been indicted or convicted?
Yet they are lambasting politicians for rejecting their initial scandalous demand for N500,000 as the minimum wage for workers instead of focusing more on how the currently very low productivity base in our country could be boosted through investments in infrastructure such as the electricity-generating firm like the Geometric Power electricity solution in Aba, Abia State, Innoson Motors in Nnewi, Anambra state assembling vehicles locally , Dangote refinery in Lekki, Lagos producing fuel locally so that our import bill putting pressure in the nairs can be reduced , etc. to facilitate the industrialization of our country that would lead to the creation of more jobs and prosperity for workers.
To be clear, one is not holding brief for politicians or, in any way, trying to absolve them of their culpability for corrupt practices that expose our dear native land to economic sabotage. But I am simply drawing attention to the fact that the allegations by labour leaders that politicians are the ‘real’saboteurs appear to be spurious and not weighty because it is a case of the kettle calling the pot black.
In my view, the exchange of vitriolic is unhelpful, mischevious, and at best diversionary. Instead of chasing the shadows, which the grandstanding of organized labour amounts to, they should invest more energy in identifying and addressing the primary causes of the spike in the cost of living, of which one of them is food insecurity.
That brings me to the third teachable moment, which revolves around the law governing minimum wage negotiations.It would need to be reviewed because, as it currently stands, it negates the spirit and letter of true federalism since it empowers the federal government to pass the national minimum wage, precluding state governments from fixing their minimum wage based on the resources available in the economy to support a low or high wage. The national minimum wage act 2019 which is the culprit needs to be repealed.
For instance, would it not be foolhardy for Lagos State, which earns internally generated Revenue (IGR) in excess of N260 billion annually, to pay the same minimum wage to workers in Zamfara, Ekiti, or Ebonyi states with little or no economic activities from which revenue could be derived as tax?
Obviously, the high cost of living in Lagos (food, housing, transportation, etc.), which is the economic heartbeat of Nigeria, cannot be compared to that of people living in the aforementioned states in the hinterlands of Nigeria, which are rural with much lower costs. So it would be understandable if the workers there were paid less. Is a uniform minimum wage nation-wide not an aberration of autonomy, which defines true federalism?
For instance, would US lawmakers pass a law that the minimum wage in the highly industrialized and populous states of California and New York should be the same as that paid to workers in less urbanized states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, or New Mexico?
The resounding answer is no!
That is because since the size of the economies in latter category is much smaller and weaker, they would not find the funds to pay salaries as high as workers are paid in California and New York states that have robust economic bases.
A similar comparison can be made locally between Lagos, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Ogun states that are financially buoyant versus Ekiti, Zamfara, and Ebonyi states that are barely surviving on the lean revenue from FAAC, as they generate little or no revenue internally.
Clearly, fixing a national minimum wage that is binding on all the component states that constitute Nigeria would vitiate the concept of autonomy, which is the under guarding principle of democracy, and would contradict the concept and practice of true federalism, which is central to the practice of the presidential system of government that is in operation in our country.
Arising from the above, the national minimum wage provision in Section 4 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria would appear to be an aberration or a contradiction of the concept and practice of true federalism, which our nation prides itself on practicing.
As such, that provision for fixing a national minimum wage in Section 4 of the 1999 Constitution would need to be revisited with a view to tweaking or expunging it to reflect the dynamics of autonomy inherent in the practice of true federalism as it obtains in the US, from where we borrowed the presidential system.
There are several other teachable moments that one has gleaned from the ongoing minimum wage debate that my good friend Segun Adeniyi, the editorial board chairman of Thisday newspaper, titled “Minimum Wage and Maximum Rage” in his column last week. But time and space would not permit me to lay all of them out in this piece.
Be that as it may, inflation in Nigeria, especially in the food industry, has hit an all-time high, which is in excess of 40%.Obviously, the N30,000 minimum wage plus the N35,000 hardship/bonus pay introduced by President Tinubu to cushion the negative fallout of the ongoing socioeconomic reforms have not been a good enough antidote to the current galloping inflation.
What elementary economics teaches us is that inflation sets in when a lot of money is chasing a few goods. Bearing that in mind, what needs to be done, in my humble opinion, is increase the productive capacity of Nigerians or production base of our economy.
Of course, one is aware of the dollar scarcity and the exit of some multinational manufacturing firms with low capital thresholds from our country. So, one is not too bullish about quick improvements in manufactured products until the volatility in the financial services sector, particularly with respect to the foreign exchange rate and crude oil sales, is better managed.
But targeting food inflation that has been sky-bound, it appears to me that one of the ways to tackle the hardship being experienced by workers would be to boost food production,which is currently a mirage in light of the high level of insecurity driven by non state actors that have taken up arms against government—religious insurgents, bandits, and separatists/sovereign state agitators—that have heightened insecurity and made farming either as a profession or vocation very difficult, if not impossible.
Since professional farming is currently highly risky in light of how Boko Haram a couple of years ago gruesomely beheaded some farmers in Sokoto State who defiled their order not to go to the farm, vocational farming in gardens around the homes of workers remains a good option to augment the food supply that is fast drying up.
Therefore, a pertinent question to ask is: Are our labour leaders considering a solution to the hardships highlighted above?Why must money or wage increases be the only optics from which solutions to current hardships are being considered?
Are our labour leaders not aware that even if the N250,000 minimum wage that they are agitating for is agreed upon today,in less than 3 months, all things being equal, inflation would catch up with the wage increase even if it was as high as the N500,000 that was their original demand?
My humble counsel would be that workers should weigh all the options available and find a middle ground, even as I urge them to regard the government as partners in progress particularly at this point in time when we are at cross roads, not adversaries, as evidenced by the fact that they are currently trading barbs with government functionaries, including those in the two branches—executive and legislative.
Even government officials at both national and sub national levels have not escaped the tongue-lashing by organized labour operatives, which is unfortunate because it is making our beloved country look like a theatre of the absurd to onlookers, both locally and internationally.
How antagonizing negotiators would bring succour to the workers bearing the brunt remains unfathomable to me.
On the part of the government, restoring security by reining in the outlaws causing the insecurity that is making farming difficult, if not impossible, should be prioritized.
One is assuming that President Tinubu is on top of how to resolve the intolerable insecurity issues in our country, and a positive result has yet to manifest in that sector, probably because he is re-jigging the nation’s security architecture that has been driven by only kinetic strategy that entails applying sheer military force as a solution.
But hope for a respite seems to be in the horizon evidenced by the throwing in of a mix of both kinetic and non kinetic methods.
Non kinetic approach is about engagement with society in more scientific manner, such as carrots and sticks, to get to the root cause of the anti-social behaviors manifesting as the menace currently hobbling the growth, development, and progress of our beloved nation as well as the prosperity of Nigerians.
In the manner that all gloves have been off as the battle for an increase in minimum wage rages, after the hurly-burly is done and the battle, not war, is won by all, not just one side, all hands must be put on deck to steer our ship of state out of the economic waters that are currently tossing it up and down.
To make our country great, our labor leaders must transit from being mere workers to problem solvers by becoming a source of innovation and a bastion of productive workforce that would propel our country into ultimately attaining a level of human, food and energy security that have been the dream of the masses and elusive to our leaders since independence from colonial control.