Amid the cacophony of a new minimum wage demand, Tinubu and the National Assembly saw nothing wrong in the use of N57 billion to procure SUVs for each of the 409 legislators last year.
Through deliberate action, Nigeria was thrown into a nationwide blackout in the wee hours of last Monday, specifically at 2:19 am, as the national grid was shut down by organised labour, which had embarked on a strike. The aviation sector was paralysed. Hospitals, courts, banks, and schools and students sitting their WASC examinations were not immune. Government offices, including those in Abuja, were under lock and key, to underscore the strike's gravity. These are grim economic harvests rooted in recklessness in governance.
The national embarrassment was not quite unexpected, with the organised labour's 31 May deadline to the Federal Government to offer an acceptable new national minimum wage or risk an indefinite strike. Unfortunately, the unsavoury experience was a culmination of the authorities' shambolic handling of the negotiation with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the last year.
Palpably, Nigerians have been living on their nerves since President Bola Tinubu's dual policies of fuel subsidy removal and liberalisation of the foreign exchange market violently seized the national economic orbit, immediately after he assumed office on 29 May, 2023. For proof, look no further than in the attendant wave of hyperinflation, hunger and gross devaluation of the naira. A serious government confronted with these existential challenges couldn't have trifled with the negotiation the way this administration has done. The government yielded the initiative to labour. Even very disturbing is its lack of clear-headedness over how to dredge the multi-faceted marshes that the whole saga has created.
As NLC President Joe Ajaero and his TUC counterpart, Festus Osifo, stormed out of the meeting with the government on 28 May, which presaged the strike, he levelled charges of levity and disregard for workers against it. "No governor was present and ministers (were) absent, except the Minister of Labour and Employment who doubles as a conciliator. There was no one present on the side of the government with the appropriate authority to commit them to any outcome; in essence, the government abandoned the meeting. We consider this disdainful and it shows a lack of commitment to a successful national minimum wage negotiation exercise," Ajaero lamented.
Labour had crunched the numbers and came up with N494,000 as its demand for a minimum wage. However, a counteroffer of N48,000 was made by the government at a time when a state government has offered N70,000, more than the old N30,000, as its minimum wage. Subsequent meetings saw the figure reviewed to N54,000; N57,000; and then N60,000. Labour rejected it all and went on strike. The latest offer was N62,000 on Friday, which Labour spurned, again, with a compromise proposal of N250,000.
Ajaero's 28 May charge of the government's aloofness was not the first. He had accused the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila of the same negligence last year in the early stages of this quest for an agreement. With the shabby removal of fuel subsidy without prior consultations with stakeholders, how to manage its fallouts and the dishonesty in maintaining the status quo ante through the backdoor, Tinubu's choice of Solomon Lalong and Nkeiruka Onyejeocha as minister and minister of state for Labour, at the outset of his administration and before the former took leave of the cabinet, was not the best. They lacked the experience or gravitas to constructively engage labour leaders seething with anger as the country was on an industrial tipping point.
This indicated absurdity. Their meetings often ended with the ministers pleading for more time for the government to iron out issues. Fuming at the end of one such meeting in September 2023, Ajaero said, "They asked for eight weeks, we gave them. They asked for two weeks, we gave them... you can see that there was no agreement on any issue." This official rigmarole triggered the first cannon shot of a 21-day strike notice by labour. But instead of embracing statesmanship, brinkmanship triumphed with the government's resort to the divide-rule-tactic, by isolating the NLC leadership and dealing with his TUC counterpart, Festus Osifo. It produced no gains!
Moving back and forth, a wage award of N35,000 to every worker was offered when the President stepped in. It lasted for six months and could not cushion the effects of the prevailing economic headwinds. The additional palliatives in fixing the Port Harcourt refinery by the end of December last year, providing Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses as an alternative to fuel-driven vehicles to tame increasing transport fares, among others, remain fantasies to date. Integrity is at issue here.
That the 1 June strike, suspended for five days, held and crippled the economy for two days, meant that the government didn't learn any lesson from the 27 to 28 February warning strike in response to what labour described then as its bad faith in implementing their 16-point mutually agreed pact. The void of consensus on the minimum wage, which the 37-member Minimum Wage Tripartite Committee, unjustifiably launched with N500 million was supposed to curate, should subject that curious expenditure to more enquiry.
Wastage such as this, the garish opulence of elected and appointed public officials at the expense of Nigerian taxpayers and the government's obvious profligacy, have, in part, made labour more feisty and ravenous in its demand. What the President did last Tuesday by meeting with the government's negotiation team and tasking the Minister of Finance to produce the cost implication of a new minimum wage within 48 hours for a definitive offer, should have been done much earlier to nip last Monday's crippling strike in the bud.
Amid the cacophony of a new minimum wage demand, Tinubu and the National Assembly saw nothing wrong in the use of N57 billion to procure SUVs for each of the 409 legislators last year. The 2023 supplementary budget provided N28 billion for buying exotic cars for the President, First Lady, Chief of Staff, and renovation of residences, among others, in the Presidential Villa. Whether at national or state levels, unduly long convoys of official vehicles are still in vogue. All of this points to the fact that these two arms of government are still indifferent to belt-tightening. It is a squalid moral canvas that is out of sync with the plea for sacrifices from workers and for them to continue to feed on hope.
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It is reckless and insensitive that state governors, who are members of the new minimum wage tripartite panel by representation, reportedly spent N986.64 billion on refreshments, travelling, utilities and recurrent income in 30 states, in the first three months of 2024. The situation couldn't be more bizarre!
That the government did not have cost implications for different wage scenarios until the recent presidential directive, speaks a lot about its disposition to wage adjustment since last year. It presents stark evidence of official lethargy or unwillingness to deal with socio-economic emergencies that government policies have caused so far.
Conceivably, with the government's waffling policies and its accustomed default mode in managing the country's petroleum resources, the economic crisis will not shrivel any time soon. The ravages of food inflation at 40.1 per cent and headline inflation at 33.69 per cent, are likely to head further south, irrespective of whatever is agreed to as the new minimum wage. Consequential salary adjustment agitations are sure to follow.
All there is in salvaging an economy in the doldrums is not in revenue expansion. Mr President, keeping inflationary spirals under check, responding to the negative challenges of Ease of Doing Business, and stimulating the productive sector for jobs and wealth creation are categorical imperatives now. The less privileged in society need to breathe! Addressing challenges bugging the economy, in fits and starts, and with the misplacement of priorities, amounts to a ride to nowhere.
