The memory is still very fresh. Yes we cannot forget in a hurry the days when Nigeria’s Independence Day anniversary celebrations were like Christmas, New Year, Easter, Eid el- Fitri, all rolled into one. The green-white-green flag-waving school children, well organised competitive parades that formed the core of the fanfare that characterised the celebration of our dear nationhood, and a host of other joyful activities. Then we were full of optimism believing that tomorrow will be more glorious. Unfortunately our optimism has waned and many Nigerians no longer see any glimmer of hope for our country.
Exactly a year ago, the nation’s present administration assured Nigerians of better years ahead. They acknowledged our challenges but promised that we shall surmount them if we are persistent and resilient. Nigerians were told that our founding fathers also encountered challenges but overcame them all because they were determined to keep the flag of independence flying. Suffice it to say that other nations of the world also have their challenges but address them religiously. Hence, nations like Malaysia, India, China, etc who were at par with us have long overcome the basic challenges we are still grappling with.
The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) is greatly disturbed by the relative insignificance of the achievements recorded by successive administrations. They are simply not commensurate with the huge amounts of revenue that have accrued into the coffers of the country. Less than a week ago, the Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs of NNPC, Ms Tumini Green, lauded the Minister of Petroleum, Allison Madueke, and the Petroleum Ministry for fixing vandalised pipelines, an action which has in turn led to increase in daily production of crude oil by about 400,000 barrels. This is good, but it would only count if its potential effects are allowed to manifest. It is our thinking that increase in crude production should translate into better welfare, but this will not be the case until the ruling elites jettison their tendency to pay more attention to politics and looting than to good governance.
So far the tales are such as weary the heart. They are tales of unemployment, poverty, infrastructural decay, insecurity, kidnappings, destruction of lives and property, strikes in virtually all sectors of the economy, to mention but a few. While we battle with these and their effects, our leaders indulge in politics of acrimony and even in free-for-all fights such as we have witnessed at both the National and State Assemblies. Their policies and legislations are largely self-centred and often focus on allocation of more monies to themselves. Meanwhile the Senate has made an attempt to decentralise legislation on wages of workers!
We commend Nigerians for successfully enduring the avoidable pains and hunger induced by the unsavoury actions of the ruling class who have hijacked the nation’s treasury, negated every effort of the founding fathers at making Nigeria the land of our collective dreams, and are seeking to make everyone else subject to their whims and caprices. Leadership has proved to be the bane of Nigeria’s development prospects, and our leaders have lost touch with the citizenry, such that we now face hopeless reality. As the Niger State Governor, Babaginda Aliyu, aptly noted – as reported in a national daily, “We are bedevilled with leadership challenges. Any nation without visionary leaders – leaders with integrity – will face social and economic instability.”
Unemployment
Official report states that unemployment rate has steadily increased from 12 percent in 2006 to 24 percent in 2011. This upward trend continued in 2012. Only recently the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, admitted that the spate of unemployment was giving her sleepless nights. Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Okonjo-Iweala said that about 1.8 million young Nigerians join the over-saturated labour market each year. She concluded by saying that the earlier the government moves to curb this trend the better. Similarly, Malam Abubakar Mohammed of the National Directorate of Employment only recently lamented that unemployment is escalating in the South-South zone. We also read in the papers that 25,000 jobs have been lost in the vegetable oil industry due to unbridled importation.
As it stands today there is no sector that has not lost thousands of jobs, and mass migration of Nigerian professionals in search for greener pasture abroad continues. There are nearly 4,000 Nigerian medical doctors in the UK alone. And it is possible that we have such numbers of migrant engineers and lawyers, etc. The effects of youth unemployment abound: incessant cases of kidnapping, killing, robbery, prostitution, etc.
It is dangerous to leave our graduates unemployed. Legal luminary, Mike Ozekhome, while recounting his experience in kidnappers’ den, disclosed that the kidnappers spoke Queen’s English and discussed and analysed politics knowledgeably. They are very up-to-date on present-day issues. The implication is that whatever vice our educated youths engage in will enjoy a touch of perfection. To curb these vices, government must stop shirking its responsibility in terms of job creation. At the least it must create enabling environment for artisans to operate.
The Congress wishes to use this opportunity to warn those who have espoused various anti-labour laws, those who take advantage of the unemployment situation in the country to exploit workers, and other persons who have shown intolerance to workers’ rights and welfare. We advise them to repent of this course lest we bring the power of collective resistance and all other lawful options at our disposal to bear on them.
The Economy
The government has repeatedly asserted that our economy is strong and doing well, but we know better. No one needs a doctor to tell a very malnourished child! If the economy is that good, why has the government refused to pay the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) even after three months of industrial action by the lecturers? Instead government apologists claim that governance will grind to a halt if ASUU’s demands are met. They have perfected the art of speaking from different sides of the mouth, fooling no one but themselves. Another version of the foolery is when, instead of tackling our challenges head-on, our leaders tell us that our challenges are not peculiar!
The truth is there is so much impunity in our clime, a function of lack of vision. We are the sixth largest oil producer in the world, yet we still import refined petroleum products, making the country a laughing stock among the comity of nations. It is a paradox that the more money we make as a nation the fiercer the agony experienced by Nigerians!
Time was when many textile, rubber, leather and other factories contributed to the economy through job creation and payment of taxes. Unfortunately, the unbridled craze of Nigerians for foreign textile, shoes et al and successive governments’ lack of stringent check on the nation’s borders have led to the flooding of our markets with all manner of products and goods with close local substitutes. The pharmaceutical and chemical industries have also been on the decline. Same goes for aviation as well as the iron-and-steel and paper industries, as the steel companies at Aladja, Katsina and Ajaokuta, and the pulp and paper companies at Jebba, Iwopin and Oku-Iboku have all been abandoned and forgotten.
There have been reforms in the financial sector, and junior workers and those who were not in the good books of the ‘almighty’ CEOs are the worst hit. The agricultural sector that was once the life-wire of the economy and generated over 80 percent of the nation’s gross domestic products (GDP) in the 1960s and early 1970s and produced the raw material for local industry remains carelessly abandoned because of oil revenue.
The direct implication of this quagmire in the industrial sector is its inability to absorb new entrants, and this has led to the massive poverty. As at June, 2013, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that 112 million Nigerians live below the poverty line. The figure represents about 67 per cent of the entire population. The World Bank, in its May 2013 Nigeria Economic Report, also posted that poverty rate remains high in Nigeria, especially in rural areas. Aside from citing the increase in poverty, the organisation also informed the world that progress towards attainment of the millennium development goals (MDGs) in Nigeria has been disappointing. It ranked Nigeria 153 out of 186 poor countries in the 2013 United Nations Human Development Index and added that younger Nigerians are encountering increasing difficulty in finding gainful employment.
We deem it right at this point to call on our policy makers to initiate and implement policies that would ensure growth and development. As workers we advocate that deliberate effort be made to revamp the various ailing sectors of the economy through different intervention funds. All bottlenecks that have hitherto made it impossible for operators to access funds from banks should be done away with. A policy that would encourage the establishment of labour-intensive production and manufacturing industries should be consciously put in place and implemented with zeal, and the challenge of continued decline of the naira despite huge foreign exchange earnings from oil and gas should also be addressed.
The Educational Sector
The news of mass failure in the various certificate and matriculation examinations conducted for Nigerian children have become a regular occurrence. This is not surprising to discerning minds as the sorry state of our educational system has continued unabated. We are unlikely to get it right when members of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other workers in the educational sector are virtually always on strike over government’s laissez-faire attitude and disposition to education, yet we profess a desire to be among the 20 most developed nations by the year 2020. In the face of all these anomalies, how possible is it to build human capacity that can optimally secure our tomorrow? Furthermore, our school system should come up with curricular capable of empowering graduates to be self-employed after school. Existing technical schools should be well funded and new ones built.
One may not be wrong to conclude that there is a deliberate and conscious effort by the ruling elites to use the educational system as a weapon of perpetuating inequality and exploitation in the land. The present norm is for them to send their children either to foreign schools or to the best private schools in Nigeria and show little or no care for the state of our public schools, and this has deepened class differences and does not portray us as a people desirous of becoming a developed nation where equity and fair play reign. It is painfully regrettable that their selfishness propels them to disregard the essentials for nation-building and economic development.
The Congress urges government at all levels and well-meaning Nigerians to take urgent steps at reviving the nation’s educational system. The sector should be accorded top priority attention. Our children have the right to be well educated. It is only by actualising this necessity that we can build and sustain a strong future and compete favourably with other nations in all spheres of human endeavour.
National Security
It is a sad fact that our children can now identify various types of guns through the sounds of their respective shots. It pricks the heart of Congress that bombings, killings, assassinations, kidnappings, suicide bombings and other negative scenes we watched in movies many years ago are now live occurrences among us and seem to have overwhelmed the government and security operatives. The major responsibility of government to protect lives and property has eluded it. The series of carnage caused by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe, Kano etc., the rampage by fulani herdsmen in Jos, and the threat by Niger Delta militants to destroy pipelines and other oil and gas infrastructure have put the security of the nation to question. As at today we have lost count of the number of Nigerians (young and old) and foreigners that have been killed since the advent of these strange developments.
But again, given that multitudes of youths are not employed, should we expect anything better? Should we expect to have a more positive scenario when our youths are armed to intimidate opponents during elections? When there is no job availability and security, when basic housing is not in place, when access to basic education and healthcare is not guaranteed, when there is mass hunger, poverty and deprivation in the land, when the masses can no longer see and feel the presence of government, these anomalies naturally become inescapable. The government should act fast. The cures to our plight are purposeful leadership, sound education, eradication of poverty, functional infrastructures and industries, etc.
The Oil and Gas Sector
Before oil was discovered at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta region in 1956, agriculture was Nigeria’s mainstay. Cocoa was the cash-cow in the West, palm oil in the East and groundnuts in the North. There was vibrant healthy competition among the three regions and the leaders of that era did wonders with the revenue that accrued from these cash crops. Late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, gave his people free education, built the University of Ibadan and provided needful infrastructure in the West. Dr. Nnamdi Aziliwe and Sir Ahmadu Bello likewise built tertiary institutions and basic infrastructure, etc. for their people in the East and the North respectively. Those were the good old days! Unfortunate they are apparently gone for good. We recall that in the 1970s Malaysians came to Nigeria and took some palm seedlings for cultivation and, today, Malaysia is the greatest producer of palm oil in the world!
Since Nigeria has an oil-centred mono-economy, the elites, workers and masses have literally had to wear the same economic trousers due to the way and manner the successive governments have mismanaged the industry over the years, because of their inability or reluctance to conceive and fashion out alternative ways by which the country can make more money. For instance, former President Olusegun Obasanjo alone increased the price of fuel eight times in as many years, not minding the adverse effects of this on the vast underprivileged majority. Unlike South Africa’s Nelson Mandela who was incarcerated for 27 years because of his belief in and fight for racial equality, our leaders believe neither in themselves nor in their followers. A leader must be creative. A leader does not prey on followers and the less privileged. A leader considers others first!
It may be recalled that in January 2012, we in the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and our sister labour union, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), together with civil society organisations and human rights groups, staged a resolute protest against subsidy removal, leading to a series of probe panels. We still remember how many of the people mandated by the government to probe the implementation of the subsidy regime later became the probed. Also, the Petroleum Minister told the world that the federal government had saved N879 billion generated from fuel price increase and reforms, and our advice was that the money should be re-invested in the building of viable factories and infrastructure and to finance quality education for our children. But up till today, and despite all government’s claims to the contrary, we are yet to see any concrete evidence that these things have been done. The challenge obviously comprises of insincerity, ineptitude
and lack of vision, and these cannot take us anywhere as a nation.
On the Petroleum Industry Bill, we insist that the labour movement must be carried along. Until the leadership of this nation gets it right in the oil and gas sector it may be difficult for the nation to move forward. Furthermore, the nature and extent of powers arrogated to the petroleum minister should be critically re-examined. Labour supports the general intent and spirit of the Bill, but we reiterate that we shall not hesitate to resist its passage and implementation if it is framed to allow for preying on industry workers.
The Power Sector
We make bold to say that no nation develops without electricity. Nigeria’s national supply of electricity has hovered between 3,000 and 4,000 megawatts for too long, stalling the nation’s industrial development and lofty plans to be in the league of 20 leading economies in the world by 2020. Every home, firm, school, etc. operates more-or-less like a local government of sort, generating its own power and water and sometimes contributing directly to road construction and the provision of other public amenities. It is lamentable that both multinational and indigenous companies have left the shores of the country to establish in other countries where there is relatively better supply and stability of power.
The Obasanjo-led administration claimed to have expended $16 million on the sector, and some other monies have also been committed to it, yet there appears to be no end in sight to epileptic power supply. It is evident that the challenge will persist until there is a total stop to importation of electricity generators. Just recently, Kola Jamodu, President of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, lamented that manufacturers fuel their generators to the tune of N42 billion in 20 months! Surely this colossal sum could be put to socio-economically much more profitable use.
The government has told us that privatisation of the sector is the only solution. We are not averse to this if it is the most viable course that should be taken and provided all affected workers are first paid all their disengagement entitlements. But it remains our considered view that privatisation is not the answer to the nation’s power problems. Over the years we have made case for investment in the sector but, rather than hearken to the voice of reason, the government insists that the only way out is to sell PHCN. We initially resisted this stance, but later decided to let them go ahead and do as they advocated, which they have done. Also, we do not rule out the possibility that new companies may turn things around if they are proven and tested companies. But there appear to be little ground for such optimism. For instance, the fact that a company has operated and done well in Liberia (a country smaller than Lagos) is not a yardstick to accurately
predict its performance in a country as big and complex as Nigeria.
Corruption
One “sector” that has thrived very well since independence is corruption. Over the years we have seen people who were voted into public office because they were perceived to be honest, only for them to manifest their true colours through involvement in fraudulent activities. We have also seen politicians and their wards and cronies displaying great impunity and even trying to unseat serving state governors unconstitutionally. Corruption in Nigeria seems to be having a field day and we are tired of recounting our inglorious placement in the global transparency index.
Indeed corruption has remained a major factor responsible for the nation’s backwardness. It has led to much of the troubles in the oil and gas sector, the insistence on importing petroleum products rather than refining same locally, the challenges in the power sector, the sleaze in the banks and other financial institutions including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the rot in the judiciary, the refusal of some committees of the National Assembly to carry out their statutory oversight functions, the mismanagement of the Naira by the CBN, the decay of our infrastructure, etc. Corruption has distorted efficiency and made it impossible for resources to be allocated and utilised judiciously and without wastage. It has undermined merit and enthroned mediocrity and nepotism. It has hatched backwardness and underdevelopment. Etc., etc.
So what must we do? We must say “No” to corruption. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), the police and other anti-crime outfits must arise and live up to their responsibilities. And the government must lead the onslaught against corruption by demonstrating the will and determination to enforce relevant laws and win the fight.
The National Minimum Wage
Apart from the fact that some state governments have refused to implement the N18,000 national minimum wage regime stipulated by the federal government, there is also a move by the Senate to decentralise legislation on minimum wage, thus showing infidelity to the cause of the Nigerian worker. We all know that moving legislative power on minimum wage from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List will essentially decentralise and weaken labour unionism and give the states, local governments and private-sector employers the opportunity to exploit workers. Thus, as labour unionists, we unleashed one of our potent weapons against such impunity by staging a protest rally at the National Assembly in Abuja two weeks ago. Happily, feelers from the House of Representatives indicate that it supports our position for the continuance of a singular national minimum wage, and the Senate President has promised that the red chamber will soon
revisit the issue to accommodate our grievances. Meanwhile we watch with keen interest and unblinking eyelids, ready to apply the next appropriate measure against undue delay or recalcitrance by the Senate.
The idea of a national minimum wage is not an attempt to fix a national economy-wide salary scale, for the unions are from both the public and private sectors and are not earning the same pay. The logic of national minimum wage in a democracy is that government, as the greatest asset of the citizen, has the responsibility to protect the weakest from those that have enormous economic power. It is our business and avowed commitment to see to it that the government never abdicates this responsibility.
CONCLUSION
Finally, as we mark another anniversary as a nation, the Congress urges the federal government to be mindful that a 53 year-old man or woman is no longer a child. Nigeria has come of age! We urge the government to ensure industrial harmony, which in turn will usher in the needed economic development and growth. Government should bear in mind that Nigerians deserve the good life with quality food, health, shelter, education, roads, power, security, justice, etc.
The leadership of the country owes it a duty to give Nigerians hope of a glorious future, that hope which has dwindled over the last four decades. We assure the government and everyone else that care to listen that organised labour will, in the forthcoming year, do all within its power to emancipate the masses of this country from the shackles of oppression and backwardness. We shall not faint in our struggle towards leading Nigeria back to the path of development. We shall continue to interrogate their policies, query each and every one of their actions and sift the motives behind every one of their moves at all levels. We must gird our loins and put an end to further plundering of our national resources.
We wish Nigeria and Nigerians happy birthday. We shall commune again on 1st of October, 2014.
The President of the Trade Union Congress, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, and the Secretary General, Barrister Musa Lawal, wrote the article.
Trending
- Alleged defilement of girlfriend: 23-year-old student freed after two years
- We’re not aware of any BoT in Labour Party — NEC
- Anambra police station attacked, set ablaze
- National Convention: We gave INEC over 100 days notice – LP
- Naira falls against dollar by 0.7%
- Delta Killings: Traditional ruler declared wanted surrenders self
- 3rd Mainland Bridge: Minister gives date for full reopening
- Eve’s Desire: Challenges of a loveless marriage, by Tiwa Says