NINE days away, the nation’s economic activities may, once again, come to a virtual halt unless the Federal Government makes a U-turn and reverts to the old prices of the pump prices of petroleum products. This is because the 29 trade unions under the platform of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in coalition with other civil society organisations, will embark on an indefinite strike action to protest the recent hike in the prices of these petroleum products.
The Labour-civil society coalition took this decision on Monday, as government appears not willing to blink in its resolve to have the recent increases stand. Though the office of the NLC president, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was recently proscribed by Justice Roseline Ukeje of the Federal High Court, Abuja on the grounds that it does not exist in law, labour leaders have been meeting ever since to fine-tune their strategies for the impending industrial action.
The labour chiefs, however, stated that this time, the 29 trade unions will lead the struggle with Oshiomhole co-ordinating their activities. They also restated their resolve that unless the government reverses its decision on the fuel price increase, the strike must go on as scheduled.
But how do they intend to make it happen? Do they not know the larger implications of the planned strike? Are there no other alternative options that could be explored? Weekend Vanguard spoke to some of these labour leaders including Oshiomhole and they share their views with you, our dear readers. Read on.
Comrade Adams Oshiomole,NLC President
Well, you know our position already. We have made it clear that we won’t give up irrespective of whatever judicial impediments. Here, we are talking about our lives. We are talking about the mass poverty that now pervades the entire nation. We are talking about a deregulation that has completely failed and only keeps increasing poverty and hardship among our people. We have said we won’t take it any longer. We have, at this point, come to the end of the road.
Like I said the other day, it is either we decide to live or to die. If the answer is that we must live, then it is the duty of every Nigerian, no matter his or her status to join in this protest. I have always said that there are some people among us who can afford to buy this fuel at whatever price at the pump, but how about the poor citizens who have already lost hope to live? We must protect them and that way, we can protect ourselves against these continuous increases which will one day take everything we have.
Nigerians must decide today that they are the real owners of this country. They must resolve once and for all, that they can’t take certain things anymore.
They must decide to ask their leaders critical questions about how they are governed. Apathy can never solve our problems. Therefore, the time to decide whether to move forward or backward is now. I have said it that the issue presently is beyond me. It is not about Adams Oshiomhole or the NLC. The people have come together to take their destiny in their hands irrespective of what happens to them.
It was Karl Marx that said to workers of the Soviet Union that they “should rise up against any oppression. That they have nothing to lose but their chains.” The destiny of the people of this country has been toyed with by this regime for so long a time. It is now time to stop them. We must stop them from killing us with economic policies which are clear products of western conspiracy. It is too late to go back. If the people say that they are not going to fight for their right, it is actually up to them.
At the moment, we have begun mobilisation campaign. We are mobilising the Nigerian people through the various labour leaderships. We are also re-organising the structure of the NLC in a way that this protest will be sustained by the leadership.
We are not unaware that they (government) will try to pick up the leaders of the labour. We are not afraid of that. We are ready for anything but the protest will be led at every point by the various leadership layers within the command structure of labour. The civil society bodies have been integrated into the whole set-up, such that government or their security agencies will have a hectic time controlling the situation. The jail house will certainly be filled up this time.
The people of this country have resolved to fight for their right, to wage a full-scale war against their common enemy and I have no doubt that they will win as usual in the end. Government comes and goes but the people remain. We have made our point very clear in the last few days that this decision was made known by the leadership of labour. We cannot and can never surrender our rights to anybody no matter the level of conspiracy. In this situation, they (government) have a choice. And that choice is to revert to the old pump prices. We are also going to make it impossible for this government to increase the price of fuel again.
The action is a joint action between the NLC and the 30 civil society groups. It is an action that will be sustained which will be total because we are dealing with a regime that does not have conscience, a government which believes only on fuel importation at exorbitant cost which is then passed on as heavy burden on you and I. We have asked the question and nobody has given us answers: What is happening to our four refineries? Why can’t they be reactivated to produce fuel at cheaper cost for this country? Who are those given the contract to maintain the refineries but who could not do the jobs for which they were paid for and why are they not being punished?
We warned the government about implementing this deregulation programme. We knew it would fail as it has, because there were no structures backing it up. You can’t be asking people to be tightening their belts when thy are not seeing the results of the previous sacrifices they made.
Every step taken to prosecute the deregulation has been faulty from the beginning and the masses at every point, are being made to pay for the consequences of this ill-thought out, ill-digested policy. But now, we have got to the height of it and we are saying no, we can’t take this any longer.
I don’t mind my arrest because that will not affect the strike in any way. So, this is not only the labour and civil society’s battle, it is a battle for all Nigerians.
Peter Akpatason,NUPENG president
Labour expected that the government would behave true to type, following the Justice Roseline Ukeje’s judgement. It’s like they (government) had been waiting for it. The whole thing looks like an official conspiracy to cage labour and inflict more pain on the people. That was why they did not even wait for the dust of that judgement to settle before they shot up the fuel price. What it clearly showed was that labour has been the clog in the wheel of their evil intentions to further pauperise the people of this country.
The calculation was that the judgement has completely rendered labour ineffective, thinking that they are not likely to get any opposition from the people. But I want to say that the calculation was a terrible mistake. They have lost it. We decided that while we appeal against that judgement, we should work out another strategy that will even be more effective in checkmating their excesses.
The NLC decided that the individual trade unions should now take up the challenge along with the civil society groups. We scheduled a meeting for Monday where we took stock of the whole development and decided that we must not sit by and watch all our previous efforts go down in vain. I mean, this is an issue that we had suffered, given our time and energy to fight in the past. Yet, that issue has re-surfaced in a more vicious dimension. The government went ahead to increase the fuel price without recourse to the stakeholders.
You see, it is not as if we are expecting them to consult anybody before increasing the pump price because we know that that culture is alien to them. We reviewed every development and then came out with the October 11 ultimatum that if they (government) fail to reverse the decision to hike the fuel prices, we would have no option than to shut down the country for the time being.
We knew that there is no way such action can succeed without the 29 industrial unions’ leaderships coming together to declare their decision to embark on a protest. We also knew that there is no way we can make the whole strike more effective if the civil society groups who fought the military to a standstill are excluded. The only thing is that Comrade Oshiomhole was now mandated to coordinate the activities of the leadership of the trade unions during the protest.
Now that we have seen that this government is not ready to listen to the people, we have decided that it is time to compel it to understand that it cannot lord it over the people against their wishes. The people of this country have made it very clear to this regime that they are tired of its endless increases of fuel prices. Why must the citizens be suffering for the excesses of the government? Why can’t they get our refineries working? Why must they be comparing our fuel prices to the international crude oil price?
The Western agencies are pushing this government to kill its citizens with hardship and poverty. But since we can no longer take the increase further, we have decided to engage them in a fight of will. We are not afraid of what anybody is going to do to us. Whether it is prison house or death, we are ready for the government because the economic criminality against the citizens by the government has reached its peak and must stop once and for all. Like Comrade Oshiomhole said in his address the other day, we’ve got to decide whether to fight for our collective survival or continue to groan under the yoke of imposed hardship. This is one strike action that is beyond NLC. It is collective and all inclusive and from October 11, we will really determine who owns this country.
John Kolawole, Scribe, Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC
First and foremost, I want to let you know that strike is the last option after dialogue and reason fail. NLC has decided to go on strike if nothing is done to change the pump price increase. That is the last action for any trade union after every other thing fails.
But the situation is different now. It is the NLC that is calling for the strike. The TUC is not part of the strike. Our position is to write the President and propose a meeting with him to tackle these issues via dialogue. You will discover that in the past, each time we embarked on strike, we ended the strike without resolving the issue permanently. Hence, the problem keeps resurfacing. It is time for us to begin to talk about refurbishing these refineries and building new ones. We really need to tackle these issues rather than leaving them hanging.
We generate excess resources from crude. We should use them in refurbishing these refineries and building new ones because I don’t see any benefit in importing fuel. So, we need to sit down. If we cannot reach an agreement, we can reach a Memoranda of Understanding. That is what we are expecting by a certain period of time.
I think we should look inwards for domestic solution to this problem. We have to stop fuel importation but before that, we have to do things to improve the home front and be able to improve the situation at home. Some of these people pay lip service to the fuel situation. Some aspects of government will tell you that, no, we don’t want this importation of fuel to continue. Yet, there has not been any serious action to solve the problem of refineries in the country.
Differences with NLC
NLC is the labour centre for 29 unions. TUC is the labour centre for 24 senior staff associations. So, I think the public should know that. TUC is not under the NLC but in the past, we had always worked together. They have not consulted us this time but we have started holding meetings to begin to plan for our own kind of action. As at now, I don’t know exactly the type of action we may take but we have written to the President. We don’t know whether he has received the letter or not. But there has not been an acknowledgment. However, the outcome will determine our next line of action.
We have worked with the NLC in the past but this time around, we are doing something different. The most important thing is that we are tacking the problem from right, left and centre. I agree with you that it would have been better if we all come together honestly and genuinely to tackle this matter, not arrogantly and otherwise.
Well, this amendment of the Labour Law was inevitable. Even NLC itself knows same. But I must agree and it appears to us too that the government has a hidden agenda but it would be making a big mistake if its aim of amending the law is to cripple the NLC. It will not work because we are talking about Nigerian workers and workers all over the world have one resolution. They have one idea. An injury to one is an injury to all. That is the truth of the matter.
Even if we have different labour centres, we are still one. If anything happens to the NLC, others will rise. We will not accept it for the simple reason that if it is NLC’s turn today, it could be our turn tomorrow. So, the government can amend labour laws but it cannot break the chord that binds workers together. It cannot be done. So, we are together.
The TUC is doing something because the solution to this problem does not lie with Oshiomole alone. We are all fighting a common cause in different ways. So, don’t look at it as if we are detaching ourselves from the problem. No, it is a fight for all of us because we are planning, enforcing ourselves towards a decisive action. And we want to ginger every other section because it’s a battle for all.
It is not Oshiomhole’s fight. It’s a fight for all of us because many are beginning to think that anytime Oshiomhole wakes up from the wrong side of the bed, he will just call a strike and we know this is not true. A strike is not easy to call. A lot of mobilisation has to be done and it’s not easy to mobilise. Nigerians should understand that this fight is about them and c-ooperate. If Nigerians keep quiet, then they will have a problem . We want Nigerians to understand that there is a political angle to some of these issues. So, Nigerians should sit up and fight for their rights.
So, local production should be enhanced to a reasonable level but that is not being done because some people are benefitting from the fuel crisis. It is not right and Nigerians should stand up and fight for their rights. Nigerians are not helpless. We have written to President Obasanjo. We have another fall-back if he does not want dialogue. We won’t succumb to all these problems. We will fight. And we in the TUC are on the side of the people. We are not against NLC and government cannot buy us over.
Sylvester Ejiofoh, General-Secretary, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations and Recreated Employees
We are treading a very familiar route and this I must tell you is also different. In the past, we have had the price of fuel and diesel higher than the price of kerosene but this time around, the government is asking housewives to go back to the use of firewood which they abandoned decades ago. Even the firewood has become expensive due to deforestation. So, what Nigerians are faced with is a severe economic hardship.
This increase of petroleum products at regular intervals makes a mockery of government. And I was really surprised at the governors. I saw them on TV the other day battling on how to share the oil windfall while Nigerians are suffering. Tell me, what will stop the government from building a solid refinery somewhere in Lagos that would supply fuel to every state in the federation and then, begin to refurbish the old ones.
What is most annoying about this price increase is that the people were not consulted. Now, imagine kerosene selling more than petrol and diesel, the first in the history of this country. That means, you are asking our wives to go and start using firewood which may not even be available in the first instance.
What stopped President Obasanjo from consulting the people before taking a decision that would affect them so negatively? Why was there no debate over this issue and we are in a democracy? Even in the days of the military, things were never done like this. We are really in trouble. I don’t know what the problem is. Nigerians are getting poorer everyday. And the National Assembly which houses the representatives of the people is keeping quiet.
Workers who worked for thirty, forty years before retirement are dying everyday without collecting gratuity or pension. It’s a sad story. What sort of country is that? Students are leaving the universities without jobs. No old-age allowance. Old people retire, no old people’s homes. So, do we just sit down and look? It is unfair.
Nigerians are being taken for granted, being intimidated by the level of poverty they are made to suffer everyday and that is not fair. What other country does Nigerians have? How can we have a country that is so insensitive to people’s needs? What is government telling Nigerians by its continuous hike of pump prices of petroleum products? This is enslavement.
You keep telling the people it will be better in the long run. What about now? At the rate we are going, with the life span dropping everyday, how many people’s lives would be better in the so-called long run? How many will be alive to experience the long run? Are we going to fold our hands and keep quiet and watch our people graduate from the use of firewood to kerosene, to gas and then go back to the use of firewood? It baffles me.
The military regimes of the past tabled every issue to public debate except maybe June 12. When the issue was debated and found to be unpopular, it was shelved. Even General Abacha one time hiked the pump price of fuel products and when there was an outcry, he reverted to the old pump price. Why are we in a democracy and the so-called democratic government takes decisions like this with impunity, never bothered about consulting the people or tabling very sensitive matters for public debate? Are Nigerians going to keep quiet? Definitely not! That’s why the government must revert to the old price or face the wrath of Nigerians whom it has been taken for granted. If killing us is their solution, let them go ahead.
Elijah Okongbo
General-Secretary, NUPENG
I was at the meeting in Abuja where the decision for a strike by 29 industrial unions was taken. We don’t expect this strike to hold because we think that before October 11, the pump prices of petroleum products would have been reverted. But if that is not done, then we will go ahead with the strike.
We believe in the rule of law but can you imagine the judge (Mrs. Ukeje) telling the whole world that NUPENG is not an affiliate of NLC? Which law book did she get that from? You know the painful thing about this hike? There was no consultation whatsoever with anybody. It is a terrible thing. But we will counter that under the umbrella of NLC which is the clearing house for the industrial unions. Nobody supports this increase of petroleum products at regular intervals all in the name of economic reforms. Now, an average housewife cannot buy kerosene to cook. Is that not a terrible situation? As an oil producing nation, every Nigerian family should be able to be using cooking gas but we are faced now with having to go back to the use of firewood. This is unacceptable.
We should wake up. Whatever the government wants to do, let it do with fairness. But this is a very terrible thing. It is punishment. Even the past military dictators were not like this. You know how Abacha set up a Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) and put Buhari there. Today, you and I can point out the achievements of PTF in a military era. We had potable water, roads were tarred, electricity was supplied to a lot of rural areas, drugs were provided for many hospitals. You can point to a lot of things that PTF did.
Now, what can you point at that Obasanjo has done with all the windfall from oil? Nothing. Only incessant, outrageous increases in prices of fuel products. In a democracy? Look, we cannot keep quiet. I am not afraid to die. I’m a free Nigerian and we are protecting the interest of everybody including the SSS and the police, even the armed forces. The security forces should stop harassing Oshiomhole because he has no case to answer. Everybody is affected by this problem, not only Adams Oshiomhole.
Are these people who hike these prices not the servants of the people? Are they the ones to dictate the terms, and without due consultations with the people they are supposed to be serving? Is it right to say because, a few people in the market and the NNPC are making much gains, other Nigerians can go to hell?
I am a labour leader and I represent the working class and the underprivileged. Should I keep quiet and watch these people suffer? Look, it’s not indecent to say that I can afford whatever price but what about the majority that cannot? That is the issue here. Why should government make the poor poorer?
We are committed to this battle. Let the government kill us if they want. It will not be the first time in history that government would be killing labour leaders. Some died in the past. Kokori was in prison for years and so were many others. Some who were not lucky died.
Nigerians had pity when (late Head of State, Gen. Sani) Abacha jailed him. Now, can you imagine a man who was sentenced to death and whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because of the outcry of the people would subject Nigerians to these punitive measures? Yet, we regard him as an elder statesman. He (Obasanjo) should take it easy with Nigerians. There are some good policies but when it comes to this fuel increase at regular intervals, it makes a mockery of everything. And all the governors talk about now is how to share the oil windfall. What about refurbishing the refineries? I have nothing against privatisation but not the way they are doing it now. It is not right.
