Since the other political parties, or the Conference of Nigeria’s Politica Parties, CNPP, are as good as ineffective, the only opposition to President Olusegun Obasanjo’s style of governance is the Adams Oshiomole’s Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC. With the attempt to pass the executive sponsored labour bill, it would not in any way serve Nigeria’s interest or her citizens’ should President Obasanjo’s labour bill be allowed to enjoy the benefit of full legislation.
If it becomes law, then the spectre of doom would have become magnified for the average Nigerian because the only veritable opposition to President Obasanjo’s economic policies which do not seem to have a “human face or the milk of human kindness”, since the other political parties are as good as dead.
It was an irony ordained. And nothing could have sent the message deep down than the move by the Senate to go on strike. The legislators were not embarking on the strike action to deal with Nigerians, it was to press home a point with President Olusegun Obasanjo.
And so, on a day Nigeria’s senate was to pass the bill restricting strike action by workers, the Senate on Tuesday, September 31, embarked on a 48 hour ‘strike’ to compel the dismissal of Federal Capital Minister, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai from office on account of invectives against the lawmakers.
If the Senate could easily fall back on a strike action just because of an ego issue, and the same senate is being dragged by the nose to help legislate for the quasi-proscription of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, which at least manifestly champion better causes than an insult from a minister to a legislator, it merely highlights the shallowness of the thinking, the depravity of the mind and the morass to which the polity has sunk.
Now, which is more important: going on strike because a minister has refused to tender an apology to the legislators or a president whose reforms have completely wiped out what was once left of the middle class?
It may now begin to matter more, at least to men of civility, that whatever it is Obasanjo is attempting to do to labour does not in any way make sense. But it may not matter that the same labour, which supported the shambolic elections which brought President Obasanjo back for a second term, on the seemingly altruistic basis that the elections of August 19, 2003 (which has since been referred to as the 419 elections) was, by Nigerian and African standards, near free and fair. It may not also matter that Adams Oshiomole, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, a man who Obasanjo refers to as my dear friend, is the same person at the butt of the move by the latter to ensure that the opposition which Oshiomole provided and which saw to it that those who, genuinely were attempting to truncate the Fourth Republic, were not allowed to do so; and that even before the elections of last year. The present tango is over a bill to attempt to proscribe the NLC through the back door.
Not uncharacteristically, it is an executive-sponsored bill. The bill, while making bland pretensions to attempting to democratise participation in unionism, actually goes ahead to place in the hands of the Minister of Labour enormous powers with which he can cause the blackmail or suspension or censorship of workers. The high point of the bill is that which seeks to break the back of the NLC by making provisions for the creation of multiple labour centres.
However, the charade of Obasanjo’s multiple labour centres is such that countries where democratic principles hold sway would merely laugh it off. The minister of labour, an Obasanjo appointee, would be the one to decide which labour centres would exist and he would be the one to decide for workers which multiple centres are to be formed, which one to join while he also serves as the approving authority for the workers membership - at least by implication.
What this translates to is like telling people that they can leave their homes and go for voting the exercise. However, it would be for the electoral officer to decide which voting centre a voter can cast his vote, not necessarily because of pertinence of registration, but because it would be at the whims of the electoral officer. So, you, as a voter, could register on your street (that is you could be a worker in a particular profession) of abode and the electoral officer decides that you would have to cast your vote in another local government area (deciding which labour centre a professional can belong to) all together because allowing you to vote in your local government would engender numerical supremacy (allowing for bunching would create another NLC all together).
The whole debate is being reduced to an admixture of fallacy, lies and ignorance just so the government can justify its position on the need to clamp down on labour. In countries where the trade union has influence, Nigeria would be the butt of pressure and opprobrium, as well as scorn and ridicule; and there are grounds for these..
First, these countries (as is the practice in their own) see the NLC as a veritable tool for the strengthening of democracy.
The ICFTU - International Confederation of Free Trade Unions - has a keen interest in ensuring that labour organisations the world over participate fully in the strengthening of good governance which translates into better welfare for workers.
In Lagos, fort instance, there is the American Solidarity Centre, ASC, which is funded by the AFL, CIO - American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organisations. These two bodies operated independently before they decided to come together to form one - after years of operating separately.
Information available suggests that the European Union, EU, would definitely have an axe to grind with the Obasanjo administration. Labour activists are saying that the EU made available the sum of $100 million through the Federich Ebert Stiftung Foundation to help labour sustain democracy in Nigeria. American President, Bill Clinton, when he visited Nigeria, also committed funds to Nigeria’s push for the sustenance of democracy. One of the ways through which this was expected to be engendered was the strengthening of civil society groups, a move which has seen labour working hands in gloves with civil society groups. In fact, funds were also made available to Nigeria through the International Labour Organisation, ILO, for the review of labour laws which the ILO says is still going on. Now, when ILO suggested that Nigeria should review her labour laws, it did not mean it the other way round which is exactly what President Obasanjo is attempting to do.
The clear and present danger in all of these is that if Nigeria chooses to allow its laws to go to the dogs, then others too would be fashioned in like manner as heading in that direction. For instance, NLC participated in monitoring the transition to civil rule. It is on record that the first bi-lateral talks between a democratic Nigeria and South Africa was facilitated and led by NLC and the civil society groups and was funded by the FES Foundation. NLC and Civil Society struck partnership with South Africa even before the Federal Government of Nigeria did. COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, is a very strong voice in the ILO; just as Nigeria’s NLC is respected.
COSATU is an arm of the ANC and has a very strong voice in determining which way the South African government relates to countries.
Therefore, in the event that the law which Nigeria is attempting to pass sails through, the government should be ready for a barrage of negative reports about the government which would make the rounds of international media.
The best way to appreciate the efforts of the NLC is to cast the mind back to the speech delivered by President Obasanjo on Wednesday October 8, 2003. The speech was in response to the threat by the NLC to embark on strike, the second in four months, owing, specifically to the Federal Government’s decision to increase the pump head prices of petroleum products.
It was at a time when Nigerians were actually complaining about the pains of government’s insensitivity to their plight; it was just some four months after an earlier eight-day strike action which paralysed the nation with attendant lose of lives. While some Nigerians were attempting to dialogue with labour, President Obasanjo mounted the airwaves in what observers still describe as his worst showing ever.
According to Obasanjo, “It is worthy to note that between 1999 when this government came in and 2003, the salary of some workers have been increased eight fold including the recent increase in the civil service that would take effect this October. It is as a fitting symbol of our administration’s commitment to the welfare of workers and in an effort to cushion the effects of deregulation that the government provided 80 buses to the NLC in 2002.”
In a country with a population of over 130 million and where roads are in terrible shape, what would 80 buses from government do.
Continuing that speech, he said: “A once-and-for-all total deregulation wold have meant a once-and-for-all increase in transport cost and the pump price for petroleum products. Without doubt, a once-and-for-all total deregulation, would have resolved the problem of non-availability and thus bring down prices for those outside Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and their environs who have always paid much more than the official posted price.” That once and for all pain President Obasanjo referred to would have decimated the population and left him with less Nigerians to govern.
“Fellow Nigerians,” he declared, “we must move forward in the interest of this country. In recent times, especially since the new administration was sworn-in in May this year, the NLC has constituted itself into an opposition political movement rather than a labour organisation to advance the interest of its members contrary to the provisions of the law establishing it. The tactical move by the NLC to mislead and recruit some opposition political parties is evidence of an attempt not only to politicise what otherwise is an economic issue but also to promote its avowed objective of bringing down a democratically elected government.” After leveling a charge of treason against labour, just because the latter had threatened to embark on a nationwide strike action, Obasanjo went on to say that “this new alliance appears designed to attain power through undemocratic means.
The leadership of the NLC has engaged in series of subversive activities, deliberately misrepresenting government policies to the public and its members, and using every opportunity to blackmail the government and others who hold contrary opinions or views.
What the NLC leadership must realise is that it has no mandate from whatever source to mobilise, much less call for anti-government action, the Nigerians who are not dues-paying members of its affiliate unions.”
But Obasanjo got it all wrong when he charged that: “If the NLC decides to run its own transport company or engage in petroleum importation or refining, it is free to do so and sell to its members and whoever it pleases and at whatever price it deems fit.” What Obasanjo did not know or chose to ignore is the fact that the minute a leader counsels his people to go and provide for their sustenance, it simply means the government of the day has lost every moral credibility to remain a government.
To ask labour to run its petroleum products importing company, or run its own transportation company suggests a failure of government on a grand scale.
And as if labour engineered the crisis from the beginning, Obasanjo said: “A strike that seeks to humiliate a nation in the presence of August visitors and compromise the dignity of our great country in the eyes of the international community is a direct attack on the new patriotic spirit that binds the Nigerian people. It will not be allowed. Our brothers and sisters from the rest of Africa who are participating in the 8th All Africa Games are guests within our gates.”
Now, as part of the Obasanjo administration’s approach to governance, it chose to increase the pump head prices of petroleum products at a time the nation was hosting its African brothers and sisters.
The clear and present danger is that with a virile labour movement in place, and President Obasanjo could so declare on national television, it is better left to the imagination in the event that NLC is indirectly proscribed. Therefore, the National Assembly which chose the strike action is only following a logical sequence of events.
It would not in any way serve Nigeria’s interest or her citizens’ should President Obasanjo’s labour bill be allowed to enjoy the benefit of full legislation.
If it becomes law, then the spectre of doom would have become magnified for the average Nigerian because the only veritable opposition to President Obasanjo’s economic policies which do not seem to have a “human face or the milk of human kindness”, since the other political parties are as good as dead.
