Says the botched NLC election was skewed to favour his opponent
Comrade Joe Ajaero, General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees, Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and Vice- President, Public Service International, an East and West English Speaking Africa organization representing workers in about 150 countries in the World is running for the post of the President of NLC.
In this exhaustive interview with Assistant Politics Editor, Daniel Kanu, he speaks on the botched NLC election, politics and his life as an activist among other critical issues
Excerpt
Your candidature featured prominently in the botched NLC delegates’ conference. What really were the issues?
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There are equally some other factors that play a role, most of them unwritten but we have always abided by them. We have this North-South balancing. We have the private, sector public sector balancing and like I said earlier the issue of hierarchy which I am a senior to the man trying to challenge me. After considering all the criteria I made myself available and after consultation with several unions to vie and given one’s pedigree I declared interest. Initially, we had an agreement that the private sector should produce the next President, on the basis of that we harmonized offices. That the public sector unions where the last President came from should take nine positions, private sector unions to take seven positions including the President.
We all agreed. It was at the point of filling forms that my contender now also picked form for the Presidency contrary to an agreement reached with all the unions in the country, so that generated a lot of controversy and we have been on it. Initially he said it was because the unions in the private sector did not bring a single candidate but then myself and the President of NUPENG were still vying but we were able to debunk it because even the election that produced Abdulwahed Omar the public sector did not bring one candidate and there was nobody from the private sector that challenged them since Adams finished from the private sector and it was turn for the public sector to produce the President so we left it for Omar and Fidelis Edeh.
But since they couldn’t agree on one candidate, people voted for them. So now that it is our turn this person still went ahead to pick form so on the floor of the election the other candidate stepped down for me. People were now asking questions about his real motive to contest. Besides too, morally speaking he is not supposed to vie for the position. This is because his tenure as the President of Medical and Health Workers Union expired in 2013 and he has remained in office illegally just to contest. For that, in the labour movement, we don’t have regards for people who violate the ethics, who violate their constitution in order to remain in power for ever. So these are some of the contending issues.
The last one was the issue of choosing his delegates, 90 percent of the delegates came from their geographical area, with a Deputy President running under his platform. And we are saying that this cannot be the Nigeria Labour Congress, Nigerian workers from all over the country must be involved, and they must determine what happens in the union. What is the justification for you to give Lagos state one delegate, when your union was given 527 delegates? Averagely if you look at it, every union must get not less than 14 delegates. Now if you look at the population, Lagos should even get more. So why did you give Lagos one delegate? Why did you give Oyo State one delegate? Why did you give Kwara State one delegate among others? So, these are the issues we raised and if you look at this process of manipulation, it is alien to a Pan-Nigerian organization like the NLC. But it appears that they were determined to manipulate the process further and that was what lead to the ballot paper manipulation which now climaxed into protest.
One must commend Nigerian workers for the vigilance if not a lot would have gone wrong. For the first time we have booklets containing ballot sheets\papers that were personalized. So you will see a ballot paper containing Joe Ajaero in the booklet, you will see a ballot paper containing Ayuba Wabba, three of them in one booklet, so for those who understood the game they will tick three for him and my supporters will tick one for me. He will score three and they will tear it and put into the ballot box and they are with different serial numbers. Some of the ballot papers did not have my name. It wasn’t a duplication and as fate would have it they didn’t manage it well. This was very technical, scientific manipulation that only an extra vigilant eye can decode. It was glaring that the ballot papers were deliberately printed to facilitate the rigging of the election in favour my opponent.
Can we say everything has been resolved now to make way for new election?
Well the veterans, especially the former Presidents of the congress have waded in. The outgoing President said he is sorry, that it was a mistake. Based on that, a new date was fixed but in the new date part of the problem that was noticed was that some union presidents and general secretaries, contrary to NLC constitution which says election must be through secret balloting now what they did was to make sure that their people when they vote, they will show them whom they voted for as a way of intimidating them to vote against their conscience. So, those are some of the issues we raised that any election that is not in strict compliance with the constitution of the NLC, that will make the worker to be afraid of voting for somebody, is not election and we are going to resist it. So, if all these issues are addressed, if the issue of lopsidedness is addressed in terms of choosing delegates, then we will go into this election with free mind.
So you are still going to run?
Definitely. I am the candidate to beat.
There have been allegation of compromise against the NLC leadership that you are part of on issues of workers welfare. What is your reaction?
Well, it is a question of leadership style. In the history of NLC, when leaders come on board, their pattern, their orientation, their background also affect their actions. If you watch the leadership of Adams Oshiomhole, from the private sector background, and a full time unionist, it was different. I think that is the mistake people are making. They are comparing it with the leadership of an employee – Omar, a teacher and part time unionist. Definitely, it cannot be the same.
Now, I am coming from that same background, a full time unionist from the private sector background, coming to see whether we can restore one or two things that have gone bad. More or less, I think it has to do with the strength of the person, the background of the person and his capacity to change things. I served as a deputy president under Abdulwaheed Omar and a deputy president, to a very large extent is a spare tyre. I am not sure anybody heard Omar’s voice during Adam’s tenure. Within that period, the highest I acted was about two weeks, and we did a major picketing – the flour mill picketing in Lagos. I led it. It was to rescue the workers who were being victimized.
So, I don’t think anybody is right to say that all of us were involved. However, we have constituencies. My constituency happens to be the power sector. And I think it has been very active. First and foremost, you have your own union before NLC. NLC is no union. NLC is an umbrella body. If everybody should do his work from his own union, there won’t be problem in the labour movement, except when a union has problem, then NLC comes in. I don’t think that my union has scored a low mark throughout the period we have been there.
What impact is the national election having on the NLC poll?
In the first instance the NLC is supposed to finish their election before the national election because of fear of possible direct interference and that was why the last election was slated to hold two days before the day for the national election, although the national election was then shifted. You know Umar’s tenure should have expired on the 3rd of March but instead of putting in place a caretaker committee that will take like three months to put things in order, the NLC equally decided to hold the election before the national election. Since the national election is supposed to come up on March 28, the NLC decided to hold its own election at least two weeks before that period. So if you ask me, I will say it is affecting it indirectly because there is this notion that we want it concluded so that a leadership will be in place before the national leadership emerges.
Do you think the Presidency is interested in who wins?
I don’t think they are directly interested, I have not seen it yet because if they are, it will be difficult for me to find out. Somebody like me, I have been in a situation where some of my colleagues say I am being sponsored by the Presidency. Some of those colleagues equally wrote that I am a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). For me these are mere speculations. While some are alleging that you are APC, some others are equally alleging that you are in the PDP, nobody wants to tell you where you belong or even know where you belong or may know where you belong but will pretend and want to play politics with it. But in actual fact, for those that know us, they know that ideologically speaking none of the parties has met the condition for us to be their members. Clearly, some of us belong to the left and it is too late to think of jumping into partisanship with the right. But the Presidency definitely like any government will be interested in who emerges but whether they are trying to impose candidate despite probably the worries some of us are having, whether they will support us or not, I have not as at today seen it clearly unless they are doing it subtly.
Let’s look at the problem of casualization. How have you been tackling it?
It is a big evil. That is the problem I have with the person running against me. For four years, he happens to be the chairman of anti-casualization committee, and nothing has happened. Apart from the one I mentioned to you that I led when I was acting then, Nigerian workers were suffering. But in my sector, even before privatization, those contract jobs, we fought and I insisted that their employment must be regularized. In a nutshell, casualization is second slavery. And these multi-nationals and Nigerians practicing it, they don’t mean well for the economy. Even the laws of this land frown against it. That you can’t keep a worker perpetually as casual staff. I think it is an area that we must look at. From where I am coming from, we have addressed this significantly, except of late it is trying to rear its head again after privatization. We are trying to find out where it is happening to address them.
Government officials say all outstanding packages to power workers have been settled. But your colleagues disagree. What is the true position?
I don’t think that those government officials are fair. Unless they are living outside the power sector. I know that over 5,000 people have not been paid their pension, their gratuity. I equally know that there are a lot of dead benefits. I know that no arrangement has been made for those incapacitated, because there are people who have suffered various forms of amputation, some paralysis as a result of electrocution by virtue of their work. Nobody has made any provision for them in the post privatization era. I know that the Act is clear. The workers are entitled to 10 percent equity share. I know that has not happened. It will be wrong to say that everybody has been paid. I equally know that every staff was underpaid, every of the almost 50,000 staff was underpaid by 16 months. I know that three, four weeks ago there was a verification exercise and thousands of people trooped out with their documents. Each time we protest, they will come up with verification, they will pay few people, they will stop again. And they have been trying to blackmail us that we don’t want these new investors to succeed. That is why we have been slowing down. They have not paid everybody and if we take any action now, they will say we are the people responsible for it. But we have been pushing to make sure that everybody is paid.
How worried are you on the state of power supply in the country?
Well I am so worried because before the privatization I said I was not going to talk again. The level of power poverty is so high. The global standard is that there should be 1,000 megawatts for every 1 million people. But today, we have over 160 million Nigerians with less than 4,000 megawatts. And the situation is getting worse by the day. And I say that the private sector cannot provide electricity as a social service. The private sector does not have the capital required to develop the economy, industrialize Nigeria. But the government thought otherwise and handed it over to the private sector. I am not aware of any new power station that is being constructed today by the private sector, except the ones government had concluded before and is thinking of commissioning. That is the only thing I know.
I am equally aware that a lot of billions, if not all the amount that they paid to take over the sector has equally been given back to them, as well as equipment, transformers and so on to enable them perform and nothing is forth coming. I argued then that there should be availability before you talk of accessibility and affordability. And based on that, the private sector cannot guarantee that. That if Nigerian government tries to make sure that there is power available, who runs it won’t be a problem.
In South Africa, you have about 43,000 megawatts. Even today they are talking about power cut. But they are trying to meet up with the policy of 1 million people for 1,000 megawatts. And that 43,000 megawatts is 100 percent by the South African government. I equally argued that the United States, the home of capitalism, 250,000 megawatts is produced by the government of The United States. And after that, the municipals, the private sectors, the states, now generate their own to meet up with their target of 1 million megawatts. What that means is that you can’t blackmail the government of the U.S. because if the worst happens, they make sure the 250,000 megawatts is available at least for the less privileged, for the hospitals, for military installations, for schools.
But in our situation, if you watch what happened during the fuel scarcity, if the private people say they will not import fuel, the country will suffer. If the private sector in the case of electricity says that the tariff must be N1,000 per kilowatt hour, and the government says no, then there will be no electricity. I argued then that there should be what we call base power. That even the 4,000 the government was generating through the PHCN, Nigerian government should keep that one. And since you have licensed the private sector, even if they generate 100,000 megawatts, Nigeria will take it. And then let us have this 4,000 megawatts still under government control.
Rather, what they did was to transfer public monopoly to private monopoly. So they transferred the 4,000 megawatts to private individuals. That is not privatization. No new megawatts has entered into the system. I don’t know how that will be a solution to the problem. If you ask me, I will advocate for a summit where some of us who are critical stakeholders should come out and say the things the way they are. Or else if we continue to hide this way, Nigerians will continue to pay high for no power. If you watch it, you will start to wonder why we should privatize without first of all metering the country. Now, you leave them (Nigerians) to the vagaries of the market and the dictates of the private sector. At one place you pay N20,000, and there you pay N10,000 because it is not metered. Those are areas they could have covered through the regulatory commission before handing it over to the private sector. That is my fear. Come to think of it, the private sector took over the sector for market maximization. They are not Father Christmas. So, if it is 4,000 megawatts they have, they will make all the profit on 4,000 megawatts, increase tariff every three years because some of them borrowed from banks. And they are paying. When the interest rate increases, it is from the consumers they will make the money.
Your life has been a life of agitation. From your years in the university, and your days in the media, till now in the organised labour. Is there any doubt that Joe Ajaero is a trouble maker?
I think you got it right. Even before I entered secondary school. From the village life as a young man, we started challenging the status quo. In the secondary school, I became a social prefect, in the college of education and University days, and like you said, up till now. And incidentally, it has been life of asking questions. It is not life of trouble making. Most of this period, it is not like there is anything I want as a person. But how to address situations in the society. That might be why I came into this earth, to make sure we better the society. If we failed to do that before we leave this planet, then we have not achieved anything. So it has been a life of activism from the school days, in the media when I was in Vanguard as their chairman, as a national officer of the NUJ. If you ask those either in PHCN or Vanguard or anywhere where we have worked, they will tell you that if you were earning N20 when we came in, we tried to make sure you earn extra. If we are being subjected to harsh conditions, we make sure we change them. Not through the use of brutal force, but through constructive engagement. If that is the case, if we are given another opportunity, we are going to try and like I have promised in my manifesto, the first May Day we will try to hand over what we call workers charter of demand to whosoever is going to be the president of the country, so that we will be proactive rather than depending on spontaneity as a policy. But on all those issues, economy, political, power situation, fuel, we have an alternative development strategy and we will put it across.
How do you relax outside unionism?
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t know whether there is relaxation in unionism because every minute of the day, especially with this GSM technology, I receive calls 1 am. Because a worker might decide to call you up by that time that they will sack the next day. So if you address those issues at that time, you are still doing your work. Apart from when I have time to jog and play football if I have spare time. I don’t equally joke with my church activities. Any time am doing any of these things, I look at it as relaxation. There is no special time for relaxation, except when I am reading. These days the reading habit is reducing because of the time I spend answering phone calls.
Can you just make an objective assessment of Nigerian politics and what is going on?
Well if you ask me, I don t think that Nigeria will end in 2015. Anybody that is elected president of Nigeria, we are going to go ahead with the person. We are going to put our demand straight for him that the country be fixed. I think that is the only thing that is important. However, the two major political parties, I can’t say that any of them has proper programmes for the working class. I have not seen their welfarist disposition. I have seen a lot of confusion, people commending those constructing roads, as if that is not their major job. I see the level of unemployment, and it worries me. I see the level of people passing out from schools with no jobs to do. I think we should sit down and find a way of addressing them. The more people pass out from universities, and there is no job, the more you have social vices. You can’t talk of curtailing Boko Haram or any of these militant organizations without creating jobs for people. That is the main area. It is not entirely who is at the helm of affairs. It is the issue of addressing the problem of hunger, the problem of destitution. And I think if we have any contract with the Bretton Wood institutions, we should find out whether they are favouring us. If there are loans that we have collected that are affecting our economy, we should equally look at them. Most Nigerians who have made billions should be able to invest here so that people can get jobs. That is why I commend those few Nigerians who have set up one thing or the other. For every Nigerian that employs eight or nine people, the person is trying in solving the problem. There would have been a great problem if the number of churches and mosques we have in the country are not increasing, preaching to the people to be calm. Equally the issue of what goes to the National Assembly in terms of resources, we can address it. We should equally make those areas to be part time. People who are lawyers, who are medical doctors, who are unionists, should do their (National Assembly) jobs. And may be, go there once a week and get their sitting allowances. If we do that we will be saving a whole lot of money that will enable us to pay unemployment benefit to people, even as much as N10,000. People with N10, 000 can still move around until they get something doing. We can sit down and discuss how best to address these problems.