On Tuesday, October 3, a day after the organised Labour reached an agreement with the federal government and subsequently called off its proposed strike, Ikechukwu Amaechi sat with the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, in his office at the Labour House, Abuja, to discuss sundry issues. While he was elated with the agreement particularly the N35,000 wage award, he was alarmed at what he called the “dangerous level of lawlessness and recklessness” in the country. Decrying the role of the Nigeria Police in the bourgeoning spate of lawlessness, he lamented that, “This is not the democracy we all fought for.” As if he had a premonition of the fate that awaited him, one month after, the police in Imo State led thugs to abduct him from the NLC headquarters in Owerri and brutalised him. We were not able to publish the interview before now due to certain exigencies. But it is as relevant today as it was one month ago.
A major strike was averted today, October 3, because yesterday, the organised Labour reached an agreement with the federal government. What are you particularly happy about that agreement?
The agreement we reached is a package with almost 15 items. None of the items is more important than the other because each of them achieved a specific purpose. Many Nigerians are suffering. Some people may die because they don’t even have N5,000 while some others may die because they don’t have N1 million. So, the person that dies because of lack of N5,000, if he gets that he survives. The person that is supposed to die because of lack of N1 million, even if he gets N500,000, he may not survive.
If you take the issue of cash transfer of N25,000 for some categories of people for three months, you will discover that it may save lives. Now if you take the issue of wage award which ordinarily I should say is dearest to my heart since the workers are going to gain from it, you will discover that even those workers earning N30,000 before now will earn more.
If you take the issue of getting CNG vehicles, workers will also benefit. So, it is a package and none is complete without the other. They all complement each and that is the way we look at it. We didn’t attach more importance to any of the items over and above the others.
Do you trust the Tinubu government to deliver on its promises?
This is a major transaction and the first agreement that we are putting pen on paper with them and in such a relationship you must always give a benefit of the doubt until you are disappointed or betrayed. Of course, we will follow up. The President said that the reason why he was not going to promise us N100,000 or N200,000 wage award was because he wanted to fulfil whatever promise he made. He said the era of unfulfilled promises was over. So, we are going to give him this benefit of doubt, at least one month is not one year. If he fails to keep to his promise, then that will determine how we will relate with him going forward.
I asked that question because some Nigerians believe that the government was only trying to lure Labour into complacency with promises they don’t intend to fulfil. If the President announced the removal of fuel subsidy without any plan as to how to cushion the effect and there is nothing he has done so far that indicates there is a plan, many Nigerians worry that Labour may have unwittingly allowed itself to be deceived.
If those people understand the operations of Labour very well, they will know that we normally give benefit of doubt. That is why we give strike notices. Sometimes, the law may stipulate that you give a two-week ultimatum and we do that. Then, it is left for the other party to look into the matter. You don’t take people unawares and even if that ultimatum expires, in most cases, we will give another one week so that we will give them that benefit of doubt. So, this is not different.
But don’t forget also that with the way Labour operates, that action we suspended, we can within the next 48 hours execute a successful action. So, it doesn’t matter. It is a question of give and take in negotiations. If the other party reneges, we will respond accordingly. Labour is a fortified organisation. We can use only one union to ground activities. You will remember that in the days of the June 12 struggle, it was only NUPENG that was on strike. We are not worried about the President reneging. If he does, we will also renege. We have agreed to suspend an industrial action, if he reneges, we will reactivate the action.
So, we are not helpless. And for the first time in the history of industrial relations in this country and our collective agreements with government, that clause of 30 days has not always been there. It was borne out of a mutual suspicion and unfulfilled promises of previous governments that that trust gap has been in existence. So, if he betrays it now, so be it and that will be very early enough for us to be on our guard in future engagements.
But nobody toys with Labour action because it could be devastating and that is why we don’t want to apply it always. So, I think the President realises the importance and what is on ground especially when you saw almost all the ministers concerned coming out and this meeting even being spearheaded by the National Security Adviser (NSA).
To what extent did pressure from well-meaning Nigerians influence the decision to suspend the strike?
Well, we are used to the issue of well-meaning Nigerians. The first time we wanted to go on protest and government tried to stop it, many well-meaning Nigerians talked to us – former governors, traditional rulers, etc. I spoke with the Oba of Lagos, Sultan of Sokoto, Obi of Onitsha and many others who expressed their reservations on the likely consequences of the protest. And these are people who understand what could happen if Labour is on strike for a long time. Now, if we listened to them and organised a peaceful protest rally for only one day, and then between that time and now, nothing happened, you can see that the way they spoke to us then, they will no longer speak with us in that manner because they must have discovered that it is only one side that is listening to them.
I know that before they talk to us, they have equally spoken to government side for us to strike a balance. But what was so disappointing was that after that government went to sleep. So, this agreement now was on the eve of another action. So, if the purpose is to douse tension and for them to go back to sleep, that will be very interesting but I think Labour is conscious of the fact that that could happen and we will not be surprised if it happens.
Despite the agreement you reached with government, the question still remains: how can an average Nigerian worker survive in the face of petrol subsidy removal and the knock-on effect on the economy? We are talking about N35,000 wage award for six months or even N25,000 to 15 million households for three months. After three months, what happens?
These are not permanent solutions. And the wage awards is not for six months. It will be paid until a new minimum wage is agreed and signed into law. The issue of six months was what the President said and we said no and he dropped it. It didn’t reflect in our agreement because we know that it cannot fly. And wage is not something when you pay someone N10,000 today, tomorrow, you start paying him N5,000. The person can’t adjust back. So, we made that clear.
But that is even not the main issue. We are talking about how people can survive. The removal of subsidy which affected the price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) affected the transportation system so much and created a lot of distortions in prices of goods and services. That was why we looked at the issue of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). We had already discussed the issue of CNG with Timipre Sylva when he was Minister of State for Petroleum and we had concluded agreement then that the CNG should be brought in but I was suspecting that there might be sabotage from the oil majors and those who are equally established in PMS importation. We discovered then that even the price of the CNG may be about N90 and the gas deposit in Nigeria will last the country for the next 500 years. And the CNG is eco-friendly. Now, luckily enough, even the independent marketers said they were volunteering their filling stations to be converted. What we needed to do was to convert the vehicles in Nigeria to be hybrid. We already have the PMS, and just like these gas cylinders that are converted into compartments, it will also work for vehicles.
Then, we established that the CNG will cost about N90. Now even if it increases to about N150, people will still go for it rather than the PMS that is over N600. If that becomes the case, transportation will be cheaper and that will also have e a knock-on effect on sundry goods and services.
That is why I said some of these things are temporary, assuming that government is sincere and the effort is not sabotaged by those selling PMS at over N600. Because as long as petrol continues to sell so exorbitantly, those benefitting from it won’t want a cheaper alternative to thrive.
So, that is even where we have the real battle. But if we succeed in doing this, you will discover that even the N30,000 they were paying workers before will even have more value because prices of goods and services will be cheaper. He will pay less on transportation. So, all these measures are temporary reliefs until we stabilise. They can equally look at other issues like electric cars. I just came back from China and almost 90 per cent of vehicles there are electric cars.
So, what we are crying for are alternatives and if we have these alternatives, prices may normalise and we urge the government to work with us in this respect. So, the six months you are hearing, within that period, some of these problems could be solved and things will start to stabilise.
What actually is the problem with our local refineries? The truth is that without activating them, all these measure – CNG, electric cars – are far-fetched and will not guaranty a permanent solution. They are not low hanging fruits. Do you have any idea what the issues are?
To be frank with you, this question that you have asked is the main reason why we want to visit the Port Harcourt refinery. It was during the Buhari era that we had that understanding with government that Port Harcourt refinery will come on stream first quarter of 2022. First quarter of 2022 came and nothing happened. They now said it will be end of 2022. That period came and still nothing happened. And it was shifted to Q1 2023. Again that has come and gone. Nothing happened.
But for the Tinubu government to have reassured that the Port Harcourt refinery will come on stream by December 2023, we need to go and see for ourselves. The agreement we had with the Buhari administration was that after Port Harcourt, you move over to Warri, after Warri, you go to Kaduna and if these refineries are working that the cost of PMS will come down. So, if we start with Port Harcourt refinery, we can now look at another target date for the completion of these other refineries.
So, if you look at what we are doing, it is not either this or that. It is a holistic approach – CNG, local refineries and we have been urging them to even legalise what they call illegal refinery – what the young men are doing in the Niger Delta. They are refining and refining is not rocket science. What needs to be done is to regulate that sector. Over eight universities in the country are offering degrees in petro-chemical engineering and those guys will work somewhere.
So, if you license them, if you like, impose some tax and regulate them, check the product they are refining whether it meets the standard. Even in Biafra in those days, they were refining crude oil. And we are calling these guys illegal people when they are doing business that could save us. I took the issue to a meeting and some people accused the boys of bunkering.
And I said, if they are doing bunkering to get the crude oil, why don’t you give them crude oil at a price so that they can refine?
So, all these things have been on. I don’t know what is happening, whether the leadership of this country has been hijacked or they are not getting the real information that we need to solve this problem. If Nigerian engineers and even these young men can refine enough for us to use in this country but they are calling them illegal people, so what do you do?
What is the issue with the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and how have you been able to resolve it with the federal government?
It is clearly the issue of trying to bring thuggery into the mainstream labour business. You may be aware that apart from one state, almost all the states in the South West said they had dissolved the NURTW. It may equally interest you to note that the trade union activities fall under the Exclusive Legislative List. So, if they are in the exclusive list, no state Assembly can legislate on them. No governor can dissolve them. So, the governors were making mockery of themselves when they claimed to have dissolved the state branches of the unions when they don’t have such powers.
Be that as it may, even while they were dissolved, the governors went ahead like in the case of Lagos to appoint the leadership of such unions as Park administrators. Now, those ones were having problems with their national office. Immediately Tinubu assumed office as President, the young men from Lagos came to Abuja and the police authorities gave them policemen and they went and took over the NURTW office. And we are talking of Lagos boys now taking over the whole country because they said their uncle is now the President of Nigeria and they must be leaders of the NURTW. That was what attracted us.
And we said, how? In the first instance, for almost two years or three, you were no longer members of that union. They were not even paying their dues and from nowhere, you now said you have sacked the leadership and you are now interim leaders. So, based on that we started to have issues. In fact, the national body wanted to do their inauguration because they do their elections in the six geo-political zones and they had completed that and they now wanted to inaugurate their leadership in this NLC House.
Before they came, police went and arrested the president so that he will not attend the inauguration. This happened twice and that was how we intervened. So, the leadership then went to Nasarawa to do their inauguration but police wanted to stop them until the expiration of the date because there is a particular date that if election is not conducted, a vacuum is created and a caretaker committee is set up. So, the young men moved to Nasarawa in order to beat that date and inaugurated themselves, police got angry and then mobilised the entire police force from the FCT command, took over their office, sacked the authentic officials and these impostors from Lagos took over and they are calling themselves caretaker committee.
So, it was at that point that we intervened. The leadership of NLC met with the Inspector General of Police and he said he will resolve it with me. I equally went there with him and we had serious talks that all these shenanigans are an abuse of trade union rights. That he should move everybody out so that the NLC will look into the matter or if NLC is not looking into the matter, the Ministry of Labour can look into the matter. We told him that one group cannot just come and say that they have taken over. That is not done.
The matter equally went to the DSS and there, an agreement was reached but the young men from Lagos and those leading them refused before the DSS that they will not sign that agreement. And as we talk now, nothing has happened. They are in charge. The DSS guys couldn’t do anything to them. They left. So, it is like they are above the law. Now the original owners of that place mobilised to take over their office and people from Lagos shot at them and killed one of them. And the police joined in shooting the rightful owners of the place who mobilised to take over what rightly belongs to them. The following day the police arrested the same people, whom one of them was killed and detained them but left the people that shot at them.
They detained them almost one week. I was in China then and when we came back, we moved into that before they were arraigned in court and bail was secured. And someone is trying to sweep the matter under the carpet. And those guys are still there up to now.
Now, the Africa International Trade Union Confederation wrote the federal government, the IG of Police, even the President. If you are condemning coup d’etat in Niger Republic, and then you plotted a coup in a trade union organisation that is democratically elected, and somebody that nobody knows him will now go there and say, I am the leader, then we are setting a very bad precedent in the country.
That is where we are with them. And they are saying that they are going to resolve it. As at today, the Minister of Labour has invited the authentic leaders of the union and they went there immediately they came out from detention because the minister tried to facilitate their release on bail. He has met with them. And he invited the other party, as we talk now, one week after, the other party has not bordered to honour the invitation of the Minister of Labour.
So, you can see that level of lawlessness and recklessness. They are saying that they are going to look into this matter within two weeks or whatever. So we are still waiting. Our eyes are on that because this cannot happen. This is not the democracy we all fought for. That is where we are today with them. So, it is a complex issue. It is an issue of lawlessness and impunity. So, any of us that his uncle becomes President could choose any organisation that they will be at the head. It is not done.
Are you worried that the same level of impunity that is synonymous with the Lagos NURTW is being replicated in Abuja?
That is exactly what we want to avoid. For over four years now or more, the NURTW has not had any incident of even a fight because of the leadership at the national level. You won’t even hear of a fight even during their elections. Because they are working with us you see some level of reformation there. Now, they have started importing the Lagos scenario. In fact the young guys from Lagos were even threatening that they will come to the Labour House and attack me and you start to wonder, where is this audacity coming from, where are they drawing this courage? Even when organised Labour said we were going on strike, those ones were saying the strike will not hold.
Probably that is why they are propping them to challenge whatever Labour is doing. So, it is an aberration. It is an illegal contraption and cannot stand. And the NLC will not succumb to such aberrations wherever it is happening because an injustice to anyone anywhere is an injustice to everybody everywhere.
Did you envisage all this when you became NLC President because immediately President Tinubu made the pronouncement on Subsidy removal, all hell seemed to have broken loose?
Yes, I envisaged it and I am not surprised because candidates of the three major political parties said they were going to remove subsidy and we took note of it. And some even said they will remove it even if organised Labour wanted to protest. That we can protest till thy kingdom come. And we said okay, we are watching. The only thing we said was with particular reference to that of Labour Party. We told him that he can’t fly the ticket of our party and behave like all these right-wing politicians. And we gave all of them our Charter of Demand – that there must be production. If you want to run under the umbrella of the Labour Party, you must go into production. That is how to grow the economy. So, if you are not producing, if the refineries are not working, and then you say you are deregulating, what then do you think you are doing because if the refineries are working, millions of people will work.
There are almost 200 products that you can get from refining crude oil. So, other companies will spring up. But we are not doing that. We export a product we have both comparative and competitive advantage and you import back the finished product. Because that is the whole essence of subsidy. You sell crude oil at $50 a barrel and import PMS derived from the crude oil at the rate $100 per barrel. The difference of $50 is what you are going to look for money to pay.
As I have always said, my grandmother when she harvests her cassava, she will separate it. This one she will take to the market and sell. Then the other portion will be processed for garri for domestic use. She will now use the money realised from the ones she sold in the market to buy other things.
But here we have professors of economics, that the reasoning of my grandmother is far superior to theirs. In their reasoning, you take the whole cassava to the market for sale and buy garri. Now, by the time you sale the whole cassava, the person buying it from you will factor in the cost of carrying it back, cost of peeling, grinding, frying it and bringing it back to the market and his profit. By the time you add all this, you now buy garri. So, if you sold it at N20, you will look for N40 to be able to buy garri. Is that not prodigal economy? So these are things we have been saying here that if our refineries are working, at least we will refine the ones that we are going to use. Now that the price of crude oil is high, Nigeria will be smiling. So, whatever comes in is the money that we are earning. But here we are selling and adding money to buy. It doesn’t make sense. So when all of them said it, we were amazed because they were not thinking of production.
And if you are not thinking of production, economy cannot work and if you don’t have purchasing power, no factory, no industry can survive. When workers earn salary at the end of the month, you see them in the market, if they don’t earn, they won’t have the purchasing power. Even now that all their money is going into transportation, they will have little to purchase things so the economy will still be going down
With economy in a tailspin and suffering at an unprecedented level, how worried are you about Nigeria?
Well, Nigeria needs urgent intervention especially as it affects the economic planners. If that doesn’t happen, Naira may go for almost N1,500 to $1. If the intervention doesn’t happen, you will need a basket full of Naira to buy a handful of products. And such a time is around the corner. But I have a fear that we are taking dictates from Bretton Woods Institutions. The IMF and World Bank are dictating to our current leaders to devalue our currency. And these are some of the preconditions for us to get loans because it is being rumoured that we are still collecting loans.
Now, if you are collecting loans, they must tell you to remove subsidy on energy. Those are conditions. When I was engaged with the Nigerian government on the privatisation of the power sector, I stumbled on what they brought here as Power Sector Reform Act.
When I studied it, I realised that what was brought to us was Lesotho Power Sector Reform Act and it was given to them by the people that gave them loans. The same document was given to us and every place you see Lesotho, you now see Nigeria. So, you see that this was a common document that was given to debtor nations that was given to us. So, each time Nigeria devalues its currency, the IMF and World Bank are happy celebrating it. And when Mr President went for this United Nations General Assembly meeting (UNGA), I saw where he was telling them that he has removed subsidy and done this and that, as if he was reporting back to them what he has done. And as you devalue, you see social and political unrest.
Ironically, the headquarters of world capitalism, the United States, subsidises energy, agricultural products but they are telling us to remove subsidy on energy. How can you touch fuel in Nigeria and the whole economy will not collapse? And how can you have the natural resource from which you derive this fuel and you can refine the crude oil here in order to produce PMS, and then you are suffering?
The N35,000 wage award you negotiated with the Federal Government is for workers in their employ. What of civil servants in the states who are also under the purview of NLC?
Conventionally, we don’t impose wage regime on the states. What we try to do is set up a benchmark because if you don’t have a benchmark on these wages, whether minimum wage or wage award, some of the states may even pay N1. So, what we do is to set a benchmark and those that can pay higher can now pay. But we equally allow them that latitude to discuss with the state councils. Every State Council of the NLC will sit with the governor, except when they have challenges that we step in to try to settle matters in those arrears.
Some states pay the same thing with the Federal Government but one or two states, like Edo, for instance as at today, pays minimum wage of N40,000 when states are paying N30,000. Provided you don’t pay less than the standard and that is equally what we have provided in this instance.
It is the same thing with the private sector. Most organisations in the private sector pay higher. I can’t even remember anyone in the power sector, telecoms or banking industry paying N30,000 minimum wage. But that benchmark is important so that people will not pay below it. And that is exactly what has happened now. We can’t say states you must pay this because they are sub-nationals and constitutionally they have their own powers to run their affairs. If we are to run a real federal constitution where power is separated, even the states have no business interfering with the local governments. The local governments should also have their own autonomy just like the states.
So, that is what is expected and it was more or less advisory that states should do the same. However, before now, most states have made that intervention. Some have been giving their workers N10,000 even before this one that we negotiated in the last three months because they saw that this problem is real. And about three of them are paying N20,000 monthly and even Bayelsa was paying N30,000 before this our N35,000.
So, we are urging them to do better because the problem is real. It is not like they are not doing anything but what they are doing is not enough especially given the funds that is available to them now as a result of the windfall from the subsidy removal. So, they should equally plough it back on wages and infrastructure. States like Edo are talking of importing more CNG vehicles because CNG is already operational in Edo in the past two years with over 6,000 CNG vehicles. So, they are talking of importing more.
If these states bring more vehicles that are CNG driven and they have such a robust transportation system and then they enhance the wages, life expectancy and standard of living will be high. These are some of the proposals we are pushing across to them.
There seems to be a trust deficit between organised Labour and the citizenry. And there also seems not to be any love lost in the relationship between NLC and TUC. Can you tell Nigerians how healthy that relationship is?
Well, it is like a relationship between husband and wife. The fact that they quarrel in the morning doesn’t mean that they will not sleep in the same house. That is the relationship between NLC and TUC. We are independent and autonomous but most times, our problems are the same. So, we must find a way of coming together to solve our problems or solve them individually.
On the issue of trust between organised labour and Nigerians, I pity those Nigerians who become automatic commentators on labour issues without knowing what is involved. To them, when you give strike notice, then you must go on strike. But they got it wrong. Some of them have grievances against various governments and they want to ventilate through the proposed strike.
Now, why do we give strike notice? It is when government refuses to address issues that we put on the table. Sometimes, letters are written and meetings are held and if at the level of implementation of the agreements reached at such meetings, government does not follow through, that is when we issue strike threat.
If government now comes around to do what has been agreed, in other words, you have gotten what you are asking for by virtue of the strike notice, will you still go on strike? If you have a substantial commitment from the government to the issues at stake, you will not go on strike. If you still proceed on strike, even the law will be against you because the purpose for which you wanted to go on strike has been met.
And there is also what we call power relations. When management knows that when unions say they will go on strike that they will, they will be serious. And when unions equally know that if they go on strike when all their demands have been met, even the courts will descend on them because the essence of going on strike has been defeated. But some Nigerians don’t seem to realise this.
But let me say this, the social system in the country is so poor and Nigerians are suffering so much. Now, if social movements, civil society organisations are aspiring for better living conditions in the country, fine.
During my time as a student union leader, it was the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) that compelled General Ibrahim Babangida when the Benin Prison was broken into to have a national broadcast calling it a civilian coup. That was what led to the establishment of agencies like MAMSER, DFFRI, Peoples Bank, Road Safety, etc. in his quest to create one million jobs. NANS led that movement. When the June 12, 1993 election was annulled, civil society organisations like CD, CLO, etc. stood up to the military government of General Sani Abacha.
It wasn’t the trade unions that championed those causes. In 2020, we had the EndSARS protests, championed by Nigerian youths who said enough was enough. And the country almost caught fire. It was not championed by the trade unions.
If Nigerians don’t like the way things are, they should step out. All of us as Nigerians will do the struggle collectively. But as a Labour organisation that champions the interests of their members, it is a different ball game. Now, people are crying over the hike in school fees. If it was in our days, NANS will be on the streets. Of course, the trade unions in the tertiary institutions like ASUU, SSANU, NASU etc. are also fighting. The unions in the electricity sector are also doing their own battles not waiting for NLC. They are not saying that NLC leadership has sold out since they are not joining them. They are fighting their own battles. NUPENG is doing its own. Now they are threatening because of the horrible state of Nigerian roads and their members that are dying every day. They are fighting their own battles.
Every social organisation fights its own battles. But these people are not even talking about the organisations where they belong, they are all now commentators on NLC and labour. The truth is that as NLC leadership, we will not go beyond the provisions of the law and demands of our members.
Because of what we got, we called off the strike and that is the decision of our members. If our members say they want N20, if I get N20 and continue with the strike, they will disown me.
Of course, Nigerians expectedly will give it ethnic, political, religious interpretations and that is why we must restrict ourselves, no-matter how you feel, even if I don’t like that N20 as a person, but that is what they have asked for and when you get it for them, you stop there.
That is how we operate and since yesterday that we had this agreement, there is jubilation in labour circles over what we have achieved.