Today, workers all over the world will be celebrating their day. Today will afford them the opportunity to have a holiday from work, gyrate and appreciate their employers. But for Nigerian workers, it is a different ball game.
Quite well, the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), the umbrella body of workers in the country, will be holding rallies in all the states across the country, but appreciation of employers may not feature in their programmes. The reasons are obvious.
In the last one year, the Nigerian workers have found life more challenging than ever. With the economic challenges in the country, many states no longer meet their obligation of prompt payment of workers’ salaries. Many workers have had their salaries cut several times, yet the peanuts that remain do not come promptly. Since last year, many state governments have been complaining of inability to pay salaries.
Nigerians in self-employment have not fared any better either as electricity power, which is critical to their business success, have been in very abject supply or even non-existent.
“As an entrepreneur, power has been frustrating my effort to work during the day. I have to wait till evening when we put on the generator to work. No fuel, we have to ration the little we have. No power to work during the day or night,” a blogger on money issues who does not want to be named told BDSUNDAY.
“It is so sad that power that is critical to the success of an enterprise has gone from bad to worse under this administration. No fuel to move around either. Small businesses have been crippled,” she added.
Many privately-owned companies, from big corporate to SMEs, have shed uncountable jobs in the last one year, while many have also slashed salaries.
It would be recalled that early in the life of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, a huge bailout fund was released to all the states to enable them pay backlog of salary arrears. However, it was alleged that rather than commit the money to the purpose for which it was released, many state governors diverted a huge part of it. In some states, there were allegations that governors used the money to fund their lavish lifestyles.
Across the states in the country, protests over non-payment of salaries have become recurring decimal. In Edo, Imo, Osun, among other states, it has been a serious battle. Protests in those states have become more frequent than ever.
Before the intervention by the Federal Government last year, the situation in Osun State had become so bad and workers were so pauperised that religious organisations began to donate food items and other daily needs to rescue their members who were going down under the weight of several months of unpaid salaries.
With the monthly allocation from the federal purse shrinking on account of the fall in crude oil prices, many states, particularly those who are not forward-looking, are finding it extremely difficult to meet their daily operations, let alone paying workers’ salaries, hence the renewed agitation for fresh bailout from the centre.
The state governors have even pointedly told the president to share the funds in the Excess Crude Account among the three tiers of government.
The last one year has been very challenging for the Nigerian workers as many of them have lost their jobs.
In January, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State sacked 3,000 civil servants in one day for having the audacity to ask for their salaries. Many other workers in some other states have had to be victimised for the simple reason that they asked for their entitlements.
Workers in the university system have also had to slug it out with government following a policy that tended to remove certain categories of workers from federal wage bill. The new government had argued that some staffers of federal universities were no longer going to enjoy certain emoluments; it did not stop there, it went ahead to sack some and redeploy some. This move met stiff resistance from the relevant labour groups. Indeed, it has not been rosy for the Nigeria worker!
Today, while other workers in many parts of the world would be enjoying themselves and getting congratulatory messages from their governments for their (workers’) contribution to nation building, in Nigeria, it will be different. The day would likely be marked with contorted faces and trailer-load of complaints from workers and, of course, excuses from government over the poor state of affairs in the country and solicitation to show understanding.
Today, a day of celebration for workers, many of the supposed celebrants cannot boast of N1,000 in their pockets. Many of them cannot even pay their transport fares to the venue of their rally. They are hard up.
Today, workers elsewhere will mark their day with the basic things of life being provided for them by government. Here, life is hell. The Nigerian worker has a lot of trouble. He/she is weighed down by the burden of children’s school fees, darkness occasioned by epileptic or no supply of electricity, lingering petrol scarcity, increasing high cost of foodstuff, house rent palaver and worsening state of insecurity in the country.
With a minimum wage of N18,000, many Nigerian workers cannot live a fairly comfortable life in a country where a litre of fuel now goes for between N150 and N200; sometimes N300. This must have been responsible for the proposed new minimum wage of N56,000 by the leadership of Labour.
Critics, however, say that the problem is not about new minimum wage but the willingness of the state governments to pay.
Aliu Monsur, who hails from Adamawa State, recalled that there have been arguments over ability of state governments to pay a uniform minimum wage.
“This is not the first time the NLC would be making proposals for increased minimum wage, but nothing has come out of such proposals. The state governors have always had their way. Their argument is that some states are richer than others. The state governors have been very insincere about the payment of workers’ salaries,” Monsur said.
“What is N18,000 by the way? They have bloated cabinets and retinue of aides that are unnecessary. If truth be told, the governors spend everything to maintain their wasteful lifestyle. They move about on chartered flights and engage in other unnecessary and wasteful pastimes. If they can’t pay N18,000, how would they now be able to pay N56,000 being proposed? But labour must insist on something reasonable. Again, the problem is that the labour leaders have been compromised. They use the platform to enrich themselves. That is a story for another day,” he added.
Andy Okoroafor, a manager at a commercial bank, said for him, this year’s Workers’ Day should be an avenue to protest failure of government at all levels. “For me, I think this May 1st should be used as an avenue to pass a serious message to government at all levels that they have failed the people. We are talking about a fresh round of bailout when nobody is asking question about how the one given before was spent. Don’t be deceived about the claim by the Federal Government that it is committed to trimming down the cost of governance,” Okoroafor said.
“What has the Presidency done, for instance, that proves it is ready to prune cost of governance? Look at President Buhari travelling all over the world at a time we are told the country is in want. Don’t forget, the president is yet to sell off some of the aircraft on the presidential fleet, yet Nigerians are being told to understand. The Nigerian worker is just a fall guy,” he added.
Halilu Hassan, a federal government worker, however, claims that he has fared better under the Buhari government.
“Workers have fared well but the government needs to control increase in the prices of goods so they won’t give with the left and marketers collect with the right. The government should also set up a mass housing scheme for civil servants to ease their accommodation problem,” said Hassan.
Zebulon Agomuo
