As the countdown to 2023 begins, call it the lone voice of the one crying in the wilderness as we read in the Bible, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Ayuba Wabba, has warned that danger lies ahead if the country continues in its flagrant disregard for the nation’s and individual’s sanctity.
Wabba bemoans the desecration of the land by innocent bloodshed, which he believes must elicit vengeance, as well as politicians who work across party lines to advance individual and sectional interests, and the judiciary, which he believes is the last line of defense for ordinary people when it is infiltrated by corrupt individuals.
He also discusses what the NLC plans to do in 2023 to change the narratives, emphasizing the importance of people’s power in changing the rule.
The Labour leader also speaks openly about what has happened to Nigerian workers since the outbreak, explaining that all workers on fixed wages have now been pushed from prosperity to poverty
Nigerian workers’ situation as the country celebrates its 61st birthday
Thank you so much for everything. There is no doubt that the pandemic is real; in fact, the UN Secretary General just announced this morning that we have lost over 200 million workers worldwide. As a result, this has an impact on us in Nigeria, particularly in the informal sector and the private sector of the economy, which includes states.
As a result, with the economy’s problems, it’s been a difficult year. The microeconomic industries are not very encouraging, and virtually every fixed-wage worker has now been pushed from prosperity to poverty. It’s a fact of life.
The cost of goods and services has risen dramatically, in some cases by 100 percent.
I’ll use cooking gas as an example. Today, the price of cooking gas has increased by nearly 100%, and the same is true for goods and services.
This is how a country’s prosperity is measured. The prosperity of a country should reflect the prosperity of its citizens, which is what GDP stands for.
But here we are, with the National Bureau of Statistics providing us with some statistics that appear to indicate that things are improving, but the pockets of ordinary Nigerians, including workers, are drying up by the day, many are unable to send their children to school, and social security coverage has been reduced to almost nothing.
So I’d say it’s been moving from a worst-case scenario to a worst-case scenario over the last year.
Many workers in some of our industries have not been paid, and some are facing layoffs.
So far, we have painted a very bleak picture, but the real danger is the disconnect between our political elite and the general public. Some of those challenges aren’t seen as real challenges by them; in fact, given what has happened in the last month, their focus is already on 2023.
But I have warned that we must also take some of those challenges seriously and continue to provide good governance if not, if the focus has shifted to 2023, we should pray for a peaceful 2023, because first and foremost, we must preserve our country’s unity and issue of togetherness before we look at our political interests.
That is why I have strongly condemned the apparent divide between northern and southern governors. I believe what should preoccupy them is how to address the insecurity, dwindling fortune of our economy with the flow of the naira, ensuring that the commanding heights of our economy, particularly the manufacturing sector, are working and in place, and providing jobs for the teeming youths who are unemployed. We also have two types of young people: those who have been trained and are nearly qualified but are unemployed and roaming the streets. And we have a category of people who have not gone to the four corners of the classroom, have no education, no skill, and are now living in urban areas after being displaced from rural areas, and they are a threat to everyone.
So, in essence, nothing has been provided for them; they have no social security coverage, no ability to look for work, and the majority of what they do is to become tools, ready to be manipulated. They are, in fact, political thugs who, in the majority of cases, are responsible for banditry and other social vices.
So this is the real situation, and it is for this reason that NLC, as a pan-Nigerian organization, is very concerned. As I have repeatedly stated, NLC is a pan-Nigerian organization. Every tribe and religion are represented.
So, where they discuss tribal issues, we won’t be there; we won’t be there when they talk about dividing Nigeria; and where they talk about their own interests, the NLC won’t be there.
So, we’ve issued a strong warning to say that all of us should be concerned, particularly the political elite, because if we’re not careful, we’ll be preaching a message of division and discord, and at the end of the day, the country will be so divided that even uniting it will be difficult.
So that is the current situation, and I can tell you that it has not been rosy, in fact, it has been extremely bad, and many Nigerians are gullible to what is going on. And it’s for this reason that the poor are frequently blamed for their predicament.
When someone goes three days without eating, instead of looking at those he elected to represent him because there is a disconnect between them and him, he will look at his next neighbor, who is the reason he hasn’t eaten.
When a country reaches that point, it is something about which everyone should be concerned. That is where we are now, and that is why I said that, combined with the COVID-19 challenge, the working class and many Nigerians are in a very precarious position.
Jobs lost in Nigeria as a result of the government’s inaction during the pandemic?
One of the problems we face is the lack of reliable data. Even at the NLC level, I can’t say we have data because workers lose jobs every day.
In other countries, unemployment benefits provide reliable data because when you lose your job, you know you’ll be covered by social security, and you’ll go to register, either in the public or private sector, and your name and information will be collected.
However, in our case, neither the unions nor the informal sector have that.
NLC putting politicians aspiring to power on their toes
The situation we are in terms of mobilizing our people and our responses, if you see- on all topical issues, NLC have actually had a platform, different approaches to the issues, some it will be street protest. And I can give you a sizable number of processes that we have engaged, some advocacy but one thing that is obvious is that our politicians are becoming more and more adamant. You can organize the best strike, protest the best advocacy yet, nothing changes and therefore we are going further, this is about the five platform we are organising because of the centrality of this issue and for people to take responsibility, that’s why we are organising this round table.
The next one will be about our political engagement, that we also need to sensitise Nigerians because it’s obvious that the political elite are just using Nigerians to play chess.
At the eve of every election they bring theories and theories and because Nigerians are gullible because of the poverty they will actually buy some people over including the media professionals.
We need to hold our political elites accountable, that’s the function of NLC and the civil society organisations.
Even a sizable number of civil society organisation have been bought over.
You remember when we did protest in 2015 against fuel increase, all those that we worked together, they withdrew to say let’s allow time.
But we said no, as NLC if all our social partners are withdrawn, for posterity we will declare our action even if we are alone but time will come when Nigeria will say where is NLC to assist us. I made that statement, very profoundly because of the fact that we have seen that politicians are the same.
They are the same because of the fact that it’s about the class contestation versus we. And that is why it’s easy for them, to be in Party A in the morning and the evening, if his interest is not met jump over to Party B. It doesn’t happen anywhere in the world.
In fact, in other developed democracies, a Democrat will never change, he can vote somebody if he believes that the candidate of his party is not somebody that agrees with his philosophy. So he can go and vote a candidate but not for him to jump over from party A to party B. And that is what has made their democracy to be strong, stable and holding people accountable.
But in our own case, in fact, you will be surprised even the statement that somebody made earlier and when he is decamping the statement he will make. That is what has made our issue very pathetic.
So the responsibility squarely, we are going to take it up to continue to mobilize Nigerians using every means and this platform we are having is part of the means.
In the last two weeks, we have started our study cycle, we have reenergize the study cycle that is going to take place in the work place across all our unions. In fact, after the training, we have given them responsibility, we have also dedicated some resources to make sure that workers education is a continuum and that workers should be able to work assiduously to build an information dissemination process and educate many Nigerians because many Nigerians are gullible.
Let share with you part of the things that we will be doing.
There’s what is working in Nigeria. it’s a plan of what we wanted to do and it has worked else where, in the advanced democracies. In fact in the present regime in the US, unions played a very important role particularly our counterpart, the American federation……, that’s why the first person that Joe Biden fired was an employer that has been a torn in the flesh of workers at the labour commission and he openly campaigned for workers to join a union, that unions can actually bring a desired change.
We want to see leaders that can think in that way. We want to see leaders that will say let us build strong institutions instead of undermining all our institutions.
Today many of our institutions are being undermined, you can see judiciary that is supposed to be the hope of ordinary man.
Few weeks ago, the chief judge of the federation was intervening because judges were giving the same judgement, the same court of cognisance jurisdiction, giving contradictory pronouncement.
That means, the Independent of judiciary is also affected and so our critical institution. That is the difference between our democracy and advanced democracies.
In advanced democracies, the institutions are very strong they are stronger than any leader and they can call any strong leader to order, that was what happened in the case of the United States.
Even when their former President approached many courts, the courts were independent, the judgements were unanimous to say that you have lost the election please go and make sure you respect the rule of law. Same with their security agencies. All their security agencies were unanimous and all other institutions.
But in our own case, it’s about the interest, and if it’s about the interest, the institutions can be undermined.
So we want to strengthen institutions to play their traditional role of holding any person accountable, no matter his level in the society.
Labour Party
Yes, even the labour party, we are trying to reorganize the party because what has happened to the Labour Party is to the effect that the politicians try to harness the labour Party.
As we are aware, the party was formed, promoted by NLC to serve the interest of the workers, not only workers, NLC, TUC, our civil society organisations and Nigerians that want credible platform. But along the line, I think they have tried to harness the party to themselves and we had a cause to challenge it in the court. At the last judgement we got was that, yes, the party was registered by the NLC to promote the interest of Nigeria workers and that they should be all inclusive conference to bring about credible leaders. That has not been respected. We went back to the court and the last sitting, there was an adjournment and we are working towards making sure that we recover the party and then get people that are credible.
If we don’t get people that are credible then there would be no difference between the Labour Party and others.
So we want credible people at the helm of the affairs of the party and not only that, that people will be admitted into the party will not also be like others. It’s a party with a different philosophy, ideology of a working class. There must be criteria to give you a platform, you must earn the confidence of Nigerians, confidence of trade union movement that you are different from others. And the manifesto is explicit.
It is only the party that has logo of the family, ‘baba’, ‘mama’, ‘pikin.
All other parties, it’s either you have umbrella, animal, they’re not human centered.
We believe in human centered approach to development, not about primitive accumulation of wealth and cleverly that is why founding fathers know that the totality of what we will be doing as government will be about the people, welfare and wellbeing.
Basically this is how we want to engage the issues. I know that the issues are really overwhelming because it’s like a lone voice in the wilderness. But we are up to the task and we will continue to play our role. And many people have become very delusional. In fact, every day, I receive more than a thousand calls. Somebody will be on his bed relaxing, if he see a negative development, he will call Presidio what are you doing about this? And when you call for action, the same person will still be on the bed to ask you how the action succeeded. They don’t know that the people’s power need to be harnessed to change the rule
We need to change the rule to work for the people not for the political elites, and that is the issue that is confronting all of us as Nigerians.
So we will continue to offer our platform, proper engagement, speak truth to power and try to see how these can be changed. And Nigerians need to come to the side of labour to be able to get all of these.
How Nigeria got to this level
Well progressively, we have not met the progress that we ought to have met when you look at our resources, human and natural resources, ought not to be where we are and that’s why each time people make comparison with countries that we started together, China, Asia people make comparison. But for obvious reasons and I think for that of leadership because everywhere in the world that they were able to transform their country, you can center it to one leader that was progressive and forward looking.
Nigerians are good followers, I remember the days of War Against Indiscipline, and because we so much believe that system can be transformed, if you want to urinate you look back, left and right, you do it carefully.
Nigerians can change, the only issue is that we need leaders with foresight that have the people at the center of their heart and have requisite knowledge, the energy to be able to reform the system and make sure that we are able to work for the people.
Secondly, some of the neo-liberal policies that our leaders adopt hook line and sinker have been part of our problem and Labour has said that time without number.
You remember the issue of SAP, structural adjustment program by IMF. No where has it worked in Africa. I remember at one time their best example was Argentina until the economy of Argentina collapsed and there was no example again. And they have changed the model.
We must have home grown solution to problem. No two issues are the same. When they are talking of Liberalization, outsourcing, privatisation, I used to ask them, at what level of development, either America or Europe have they adopted some of those policies. Some of them were more than 100- 200 years.
We know that of UK, it was only Margret Thatcher. But at that time education was free, social services were free, people were able to develop, economies were built, critical infrastructure built-in Europe.
How will you compare our states even when our roads are not good? It will not work, that is the bane of our problem and that’s why we have not made the progress we ought to have made.
One, leadership deficits, long term plan have not been there. Even when you have plans, successive leaders don’t actually key into the plan.
In terms of resources, we have everything to arrive at greatness.
And then the issue of conspiracy theory. We have become a trading post for the entire world particularly Asia, Europe and America because of enormous resources that we have. They will come, buy our raw materials, go and refine it and come back to sell it to us. And our leaders could not do anything, that is the major issue that has affected our economy.
When our colonial masters were here, a decade after they left, everything was working. Peugeot assembling was here, Volkswagen, Beetle. That time you can afford to buy new car. Then my father bought a new motorcycle. Today, not everybody can afford new motorcycle.
Every worker then can afford one type of vehicle or the other, if your grade level does not allow you to get a loan to buy Peugeot 504, you can buy Ladder, Beetle, Panel Van.
Our currency was well appreciated, that was immediately after independence and in the first republic and thereafter, things started to go hay wire because most of those industries left and therefore we are nearly importers. And it started when we then recognise that importation pays than producing those products at home because we ought to have produced and use the entire West African market.
All our political elite that will receive the support of the West in most cases, some of those policies have been sank into their heads and they’re buying it. That’s why when they come into the office, it will be difficult to change some of those negative narratives.
Basically, we need to get people that will do the biding of Nigeria to change the negative narratives and we can then change the situation. If not, I don’t see how we will be able to stop lamentation and then begin to appreciate and celebrate our country.
I think the only thing that we celebrate is that the country is still one. There are many countries that have disintegrated. And we shouldn’t take it for granted.
But in terms of progress, we are not yet there.
Going into politics after office
You know that I will be in office till 2023, basically the process must have commenced then. My plan is not actually to jump into it, we can play some roles to bring about credible people. Possibly in the future after my term in the office.
The way things are going, if we don’t retract our steps and reorder our steps and make sure that we look at the interest of the country instead of the individual and sectional interest, I see danger ahead because all intent and purposes even the politicians are working across purposes. Nobody is looking at the country and that is where the danger is.
So from what is going on, except we are able to retract our steps and and God helps us because a very bad situation as it were in the past, God has always intervened.
You remember the issue of June 12, I was a student then, people were moving from North to East, every body was carrying his load on his head because nobody knew precisely the next moment and God in his mercy was able to stablize the system and at the end of the day, even the person that was at the center of the affairs died and there was a new beginning. That was how we were able to stablize to where we are. so God can intervene through any means but if we continue to go the way we are going basically I foresee danger and every right thinking Nigerian will tell you that there’s danger because where people that are supposed to unite us are now dividing us, looking at self centered interest, then that poses a lot of danger.
Basically, as someone that is optimistic, I believe that God will intervene because they said Nigeria is a very religious country and so in some of those cases, it’s not even our making, but God will make a way for the poor and less privileged.
I keep saying, the blood of the innocent that is shed on daily basis and nobody cares for them there will be vengeance. There’s no day you read a page of newspaper that the blood of the poor is not shed.
