The Nation Newspaper

Tag: impending

  • Averting the impending strike

    Sir: The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the United Labour Congress (ULC) have threatened to resume strike action on November 6, if the federal government fails to heed the demands of workers for increase in minimum wage.

    In September, NLC declared a nationwide strike over the stalled process of providing a new national minimum wage but was hurriedly suspended after a few days because an agreement was reached to resume negotiations by reconvening the tripartite committee set up to find a lasting solution to the problem. The 30-member tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee was set up by the federal government to negotiate a new wage for workers by reviewing the current one and recommending another that takes care of the current conditions of living in the country.

    Unfortunately, the federal government could not get the nod of state governors to present a proposal for an acceptable minimum wage to the committee leading to the log-jam.  Workers had initially demanded for N56,000 as the new minimum wage, now reduced to N30,000 while the federal and state governments are offering N24,000 and N20,000 respectively. Governors are insisting that they should be allowed to set their own minimum wage, as many of the states were hardly able to pay the subsisting one. Labour unions are saddened that state governors could work against the N30,000 minimum wage while still expecting workers to vote for them under the current political dispensation.

    The issue of new wage negotiations would have been over by now had government been consistent or had labour leaders been tactical and focused like some of their predecessors of old that sacrificed their personal comfort and interests in their campaign for get better package for workers. To put an end to the persistent unrest, the federal government should stop foot-dragging and playing antics that would further delay the implementation of a new wage regime for the many starved Nigerian workers.

    Come to think of it; can N18,000 adequately feed, clothe and cater for an adult working in our country today? The answer is simply ‘no’. The devaluation of the Naira, increase in the price of petroleum products and inflation have rendered the income of an average worker useless. Many workers in the country are perpetual debtors because of their weak purchasing power. They often rely on loans to get basic needs for themselves that should ordinarily be provided for by the state. That is why many of them are not financially stable. Many of them are just working; they have nothing to show for it because of the bad shape of the economy. To make government perform its constitutional duties to the citizens, a number of fiscal rejuvenation initiatives have to be embraced almost immediately.

    Federal, state and local governments should look inward and realistically manage their bureaucracies for better service delivery without increasing costs. They should undertake radical reforms hinged on public expenditure template such that elected officials and political appointees would no longer live big at public expense bearing in mind that we all go to the same market. Public funds should be allocated and spent on social services and critical infrastructure while leaving business ventures to the private capital in the form of public-private partnership. Senior citizens and pensioners should be accorded great priority by paying their entitlements on a regular basis. More focus should be placed on reducing public debt, overhauling the taxation system to make taxes the main source of public revenues and getting more informal sector operators to pay correct taxes by dragging them into the tax net. More importantly, the labour minister should be unbiased, perform his duties objectively and stop fuelling the impasse.

    Standard practice in federal systems supports minimum wage legislation by the different tiers, though none should be lower than the federal rate. Nigeria could adopt what is obtained in other developed countries by separating minimum wage from general salary review and allow federating states to set their own pay based on capacities and capabilities. As an enlarged meeting of stakeholders holds on the matter, the nation cannot afford to witness another strike at this crucial time when the nation is still battling with ripple effects of economic recession. Therefore, the government should urgently do the needful by engaging the workers in sincere dialogue and negotiation that would pave way for the actual implementation of a living new minimum wage for our workers.

     

    • Adewale Kupoluyi, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.
  • N720b subsidy arrears: PENGASSAN alerts on impending mass sack

    N720b subsidy arrears: PENGASSAN alerts on impending mass sack

    The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has called on the Federal Government to settle all debts allegedly owed oil marketers to avert job losses.

    The union said it believed that the payment would engender growth of not only the downstream sector, but all sectors in the industry and develop the economy.

    The senior staff trade union made the call against the backdrop of the threat by the marketers to embark on massive retrenchment of their  employees, if the government refuses settle the over N720 billion subsidy arrears.

    The debts, according to the marketers, are among the outstanding subsidy owed importers of petroleum products, accrued interest on loans from banks and exchange rate differentials, which made them halt importation of refined petroleum products, leaving only the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as sole importers.

    A statement signed by the PENGASSAN National Public Relations Officer, Mr. Fortune Obi, urged the government to verify  the claims by the oil marketers and ensure quick settlement of genuine debts.

    “The government should try to separate the genuine claims by the importers from spurious ones and pay them accordingly because we will not like to be engulfed in the mistakes of the past where briefcase marketers milked the nation through dubious subsidy claims.

    “A situation where the workers in the industry bear the brunt of the government failure to honour its obligations as part of the importation deal will be unfair and unacceptable to our Association.

    This is against the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s major policy of job creation,” Obi said.

    He said as much as PENGASSAN would support any move by the government to end subsidy regime and spurious claims by the marketers, it was also canvassing  the payment of debts that could hinder the downstream sector’s growth and attract investments into the sector.

    Obi noted that in the last five years, workforce in the downstream sector, especially the marketing sub sector, depleted by over 70 per cent, adding: “most of them were thrown into the already over-bloated labour market.”

  • Freight forwarders warn against impending collapse of import business

    The Chairman, National Association of Government Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Murtala Muhammed Airport Ikeja, Lagos, Segun Musa, has accused the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) of mismanaging both land, air and sea ports across the country  with prohibitive tariff on imports that could lead to the collapse of many  businesses.

    Musa, while speaking to a group of journalists, said a review of the import  tariff had become imperative to sustain many indigenous businesses in cargo clearance, freight forwarding and the supply chain.

    He described  the prohibitive import tariff as being an unfavourable policy affecting players in the freight forwarding  and supply chain .

    He said the manner Nigerian Customs officials go about implementing the new import tariff, has resulted in a sour relationship between importers and Customs  officers.

    Musa said by the time importers relocate to other West African countries to pay  import duties, there would be  significant loss of revenue to the government and her agencies, adding that such a move will make both land, sea and airports redundant for players in the freight forwarding chain .

    He said: “Customs officers mismanaged the ports, they have not brought to the table any meaningful policy that will actually drive the industry. This is because  they are saddled with the responsibility of checking revenue being collected by the freight forwarders. With the way they go about the business , they are actually mismanaging the ports.

    “The revenue leakage is more than the revenue collected for the government of Nigeria. The tariff on imports is so high and that has taken a lot of businesses out of Nigeria.

    “We have criticised the Pre- Inspection  Arrival Report that government should  not saddle the customs with the issuance of that certificate.   But, the customs came with all kinds of explanations that there won’t be any query again when they start issuing the certificate.”

    He called on the Federal Government to engage private sector in policy formulations in order to get things right.

    He clarified that importation is not responsible for the demise of major industries in the country, saying bad roads, insecurity and poor power generation are reasons why many industries have collapsed .

    Musa said freight forwarders  will soon go into a regime of external tariff where every importer is at liberty to import goods and pay tariff anywhere in the world and go to the border to clear their goods without paying to customs.

    “By the time importers start going to Ghana, Togo, Abidjan and Cotonou to pay duties, there will be loss of revenue here and our terminals will be turned into football fields and there will be no activities going on in the shed.

    “So, you can imagine how the Labour market will look like when about three million people will be thrown out of the market,” he warned.

    He noted that Nigeria has the highest number of contraband goods all over the world, adding that it is not in the interest of the nation.

  • The impending probes

    SIR: President Muhammadu  Buhari  told Nigerians: “If we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”. This, no doubt, highlights the obviously endemic nature of corruption in Nigeria. There is, perhaps, no other social ill that has made a mess of our nation than corruption. The several policies and programmes of previous administrations in the country have not achieved desired results due to the deep-rooted nature of corruption among the various classes and groups in the country. Almost every sector in the country has been destroyed by corruption. We have spent billions of dollars on the power and oil sectors with little noticeable improvement. Every direction one faces in the country, one is bound to see the evil hand of corruption.

    Over the years, funds meant for the development of public infrastructure have been diverted by public officials and their cohorts for private use. The result is that a greater percentage of Nigerians has been consigned to a miserable life of incredible poverty while very few who are entrusted with the commonwealth have continued to live in inconceivable opulence and affluence.

    With the monumental havoc that corruption has done to our nation and its people, it doesn’t, therefore, sound rational for anyone to affirm that fighting this evil would distract President Buhari from governance. If the issue of corruption is one of the major issues that President Buhari and his government are able to confront frontally, our county would, undoubtedly, be the better for it. Presently, considering the President’s body language in respect of corruption, many public institutions and government officials are beginning to sense the signal and are already falling in line. This is what we need at this point in time. Enough of the rot of the past!

    One major way through which corruption could be tackled in the country is to sanction corrupt officials and individuals as prescribed by the law of the land. The only thing that evil requires to triumph in any society is for evil to constantly go unpunished. It is morally wrong to allow corrupt public officials to enjoy and flaunt their loot while many Nigerians continue to bear the pains of their acts. This is not how to build a sane society where fairness, probity and equity reign.  Enough of the distractions- Let the probes begin!

     

    • Tayo Ogunbiyi,

    Ministry of Information & Strategy,

    Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.

  • The Yoruba and the impending Nigerian situation

    Nigeria’s presidential election campaigns of 2015 have developed into unprecedented confrontations. People holding extreme positions insist that their positions are irreconcilable, whip up the language of war, brutalize one another on the campaign trail, and accumulate sophisticated weapons for a final showdown. In the history of mankind, the accumulation of weapons has an almost irresistible logic and finale of its own: those who accumulate weapons almost always end up having to use them.

    Nigeria seems now to be about to reach the absolute bottom of the filthy slope that she has been descending determinedly and uncaringly since independence. Countless Nigerians at home and abroad, and countless citizens of a world that is increasingly worried about the impending disaster in Nigeria, have spoken, counseled, entreated and begged. But the captains who guide Nigeria have defiantly insisted on more concentration of power, and more concentration of resource-control and management – all in a country of heterogeneous nationalities. They are hurrying to construct more and more structures that are designed to minister to, and that do excite, the greed and other ignoble passions of man; they are designing more and more interference in, and pollution of, the basic processes of governance. For Nigeria, the hens are now about to come home to roost.

    I fear that those who are now beating the drums of war in Nigeria will soon stand condemned before the court of history for the rivers of blood they will soon cause to flow, for the families they will cause to lose loved ones, and for the mothers they will cause to weep for the loss of their children.

    As the feared storm gathers, Nigerian peoples will be hit in different ways. I have seen, and I have been part of the struggle through, many of Nigeria’s self- brewed storms since 1960, but I have never been as fearful as I am today for my Yoruba nation. By providence, history and culture, we Yoruba are a large and strong nation. By the time we were forced into Nigeria in 1914, we had had an enviable 1000 years of urban civilization, with a rich and sophisticated economy, and eminently well-structured, enabling and stable governance. We have therefore had, as a nation in a Nigeria of many nations, a lot to impart towards orderly, stable and successful governance. And in fairness, we can proudly say that we have done quite a lot – to persuade Nigeria to tread the path of orderliness, sustainable federal structure, modernization, and focused dedication of rulers to the improvement of the quality of Nigerians’ lives. In my younger years in Nigerian politics and government, my kinsmen and I used to serve with untainted pride, motivated by the realization that we had, as a nation, the duty to help our multi-nation country to walk in the path of decent governance. None of that has really worked – and Nigeria goes its own way towards its own destiny.

    But, at this critical juncture, I seem to perceive that my strong Yoruba nation is caving in to the deleterious afflictions of Nigeria, and appears to be becoming incapable of even holding itself together and defending its own. The sheep has kept the company of the dog too long. In all directions in our nation, weakness whimpers pathetically. The once glorious guides and guards of the 1000-year excellence of Yoruba political culture, disregarded and neglected by their own people of today, have abandoned the parapets. Service to the self reigns – with the result that the rich now say “I am poor”, and the strong say, “I am weak”, all because they all are unwilling to give towards the strength and dignity of their Yoruba nation. Little groups mushroom to march out, but nearly every one quickly degenerates into a self-serving cabal, builds a meaningless wall around itself, and then masquerades as too sanctified to touch, or to work with, any other group.

    Lone rangers dictate the tune of our national political life, and by their excessive and un-Yoruba presumptuousness, they provoke the emergence of detractors that become bent on fighting them to the death. In every political party, many influential Yoruba say, “We seek power, influence and wealth in Nigeria now; we will think of our Yoruba nation later”. The eagle that was fashioned to soar the heights now waddles in the mud ponds. The up-and-coming generation of bright youths is offered no vision or noble direction to hold on to.

    This is our day of weakness. But, it is the way of nature and of human society to experience times of weakness. What is more important, and what we need to grab, is the certainty that our inherent strength, nurtured over a thousand years, is alive and intact, that out there, everywhere, the men and women imbued with that strength are countless, and that the immediate need of the moment is to prod those elements of our culture and fundamental philosophies that can waken and accentuate their strength.  Coincidentally, I hear that a large conference of Yoruba leaders is meeting in Ibadan this day, and I hope that they will regard this column today as a message addressed to them.

    First and foremost, we need to reawaken our common consciousness as one people – one people with a common national character and a common destiny – no matter what becomes of Nigeria. No matter what political party or group any of us may belong to, our membership of it is chosen by us, and is evanescent and changeable – whereas our membership of the Yoruba nation is God-ordained, unchangeable, and passes automatically to our offspring. And, thankfully, our Yoruba nation is an enormously proud possession.

    Secondly, in the shifting sands of Nigerian politics, our only sensible and sustainable option is to revive and reemphasize our national ways and philosophies. From wisdom gathered for over a thousand years in our well-ordered communities, we know that it is not sensible or realistic that all of us should belong to one persuasion, either religiously or politically. The recognition of the right to choose is deeply ingrained in our culture; no Yoruba person disrespects the other because of difference of choice; and no Yoruba person, no matter how high, should claim that his partisan choice is the choice of all Yoruba.  Even if (or rather, when) we come to have our own sovereign Odua country, we will have different political parties with members across our land.

    Very importantly, neither of the two leading presidential candidates has ever been formally given the Yoruba agenda for Nigeria. We should appoint a delegation of leaders to put it in the hands of the two candidates now – and demand formal responses without fail. Then, we should urge all parties and candidates to respect the non-partisanship of our Obas, and to relate to our Obas with utmost respect.

    Finally, we must explore all means to ensure that if, as is widely feared, violence happens to cap the coming elections, no part of Yorubaland, and no Yoruba person, will be involved or hurt in it. On the contrary, we must close ranks, turn such a situation around, and make it the dawn of our day of strength.

  • Spare Nigeria of an impending jaga jaga!

    SIR: When Prof. Attahiru Jega replaced Prof. Maurice Iwu as Chairman INEC, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief and hoped that, finally, the “wuruwuru” and nightmares that characterized the much derided and vilified 2007 elections were over! Attahiru Jega was roundly welcomed and he proceeded to conduct the 2011 elections in a much more respectable and credible way than his predecessor. And the seeds of hopes for a well-organised 2015 were planted. The 2015 elections, Nigerians hoped, would be the country’s affirmation of its belief in the democratic process.

    That was until that fateful day when in the glare of television lights at the INEC Media Centre, he made the announcement that INEC was postponing the elections earlier scheduled for February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11, 2015.

    Anybody who had been following Prof Jega all along would confirm that that was not the erudite professor of Political Science addressing the Press. His immaculately white capstan in which he was garbed could not hide his bewildered befuddlement. He approbated and reprobated. “Yes, INEC is ready to conduct the elections,” he said. Yet, in the next sentence he gave a litany of reasons that make the Roman Catholic Church’s Litany of Saints tame which revealed INEC’s unreadiness to conduct the elections.

    The reactions to this announcement have been a flurry of activities, statements, protests and what have you against and in support of the decision. Somehow, some unanimity was reached about the constitutionality of INEC’s action. INEC has the right to make such a change, especially, since the change still fell within the window of opportunity established by the Nigerian Constitution.

    Since then, Prof Jega’s attempts at explaining the issues involved in the decision have been more confounding. The more he tries to explain the features of INEC’s arrangements for the elections to “key stakeholders,” the more complex his explanations have become and the more questions have arisen. So, we are left in a worse situation listening to him than before he began speaking.

    From my humble perspective as a Nigerian, three things MUST not happen from now on! First, Prof Attahiru Jega cannot, must not, should not resign or be fired as Chairman of INEC until after the elections are o-v-e-r!

    Secondly, March 28 and April 11, 2015 are sacrosanct elections days in Nigeria. Nothing, absolutely nothing, must CHANGE those dates.

    Thirdly, anything that can undermine Nigerians’ belief in the integrity and credibility of the elections must be done away with, in the interest of Nigeria. Already, word is going around, in spite of Prof Jega’s explanations, that the Card Readers, yes Card Readers that INEC intends to use at the polling stations are being deployed for the purposes of sending fictitious data to INEC’s Data Centre, which will then be used by INEC to make pronouncements on the outcome of the elections.

    These three issues are potential time bombs for a country already on the precipice of major turbulence. The country should be spared of these dire circumstances. We cannot afford to get out of “wuruwuru” and then move straight ahead into “jagajaga.” So, help us God.

    • Prof Angelicus Onasanya,

    Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.

  • Reps invite minister, ASUU over impending strike

    The House of Representatives yesterday moved to stop the impending strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as it invited the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufai and officials of ASUU in an effort to broker peace.

    The Federal Government has been put on notice by ASUU as it has given an ultimatum that would expire in nine days because of the failure of the Federal Government to fulfil an agreement it entered with the body in 2009.

    The resolution to intervene in the impasse and prevent the impending crisis followed the adoption of the prayer of a motion brought before the House by a member, Bashir Babale (PDP, Kano), under Matters of Urgent Public Importance in which he canvassed support of his colleagues to forestall the looming strike.

    Presenting the lead debate on the motion, the lawmaker expressed regret that it was a thing of concern that university lecturers had to embark on a strike to force government to attend to their legitimate demands, particularly on issues that had been agreed upon by both parties.

    A member, Osai Osai (PDP Delta), while supporting the motion, noted that the survival of the nation’s democracy was hinged on proper education of the people.

    According to him, if university education collapsed, it would affect other sectors of the economy.

    The lawmaker said it would be a thing of regret for the government to allow the 2009 strike, which was called off due to a consensus reached between ASUU and the Federal Government, adding that the proposed strike would be an indication that the 2009 agreement had failed.

     

     

  • Graduate farmers raise alarm over impending food crisis

    Graduate farmers under the aegis of Edo State Co-Operative Farmers Agency have raised alarm over imminent food crisis in the country if appropriate measures are not been put in place.

    The president of the agency, Mr. Nosa Amayo, yesterday said major areas affected by flood in the state have led to destruction of their arable farm lands.

    He spoke in Benin City when the agency donated food items to victims of the flood disaster across the state.

    He urged the Federal Government to put measures in place to curtail the impending food crisis.