How long can the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) sustain its current adventure? From across the country, the consensus is that the nationwide strike it announced with so much fanfare is a damp squib. In a couple states there were signs that something was amiss, but in most places – it was business as usual.
Past strikes that have been hailed as triumphs of worker power never achieved 100% compliance. What created a sense of success was the ability of the unions to paralyse the largest cities in the country. So far, Lagos, Abuja and similar cities have spurned the strike-the clearest indicator of how well the union’s action is faring.
In a bid to spark life into the strike union leaders in some states are taking desperate measures. In Ekiti, NLC Chairman, Ade Adesanmi, and Secretary of the Joint Negotiating Council, Blessing Oladele, reportedly stormed some banks to disrupt business. They warned those who had been defying the ‘stay-at-home order’ to be wary or face the consequences.
It makes you wonder what part of the constitution gives union leaders the power to ‘order’ Nigerians to stay at home.
But all credit to NLC president Ayuba Wabba and his comrades. In the face of an unprecedented rebuff, they soldier on with rhetoric that suggests the strike action is going great guns. It is either they truly have the courage of their convictions or are simply living in denial.
The advertised goal of the strike is to force government to roll back the recent fuel price hike and the deregulation policy that informed the increase. So far, nothing in labour’s three-day show-of strength – or exhibition of a lack of it – looks likely to force the hand of the administration.
NLC has used the most potent item in its arsenal – the much vaunted nuclear option: the nationwide strike. Now that the action has been received so unenthusiastically across the country, its hand has become weaker even if the government deigns to talk with it now.
The only choice open to it is to find a face-saving way to cut short its misadventure. But that might not be as easy as it appears given that egos are involved and that the unions have not lost this sort of confrontation in the last 16 years.
It is hard to imagine how the NLC can come out of this smelling of roses. It is up against a government which has its back against the wall; an administration that says the nation is broke and deregulation is its last card.
The unions don’t make it easy for themselves to win the battle for minds because they don’t offer an alternative beyond chanting ‘No! No! No!
Interestingly, they have said in the past that, in principle, they were not opposed to deregulation. So both sides agree on something. This was what I had to say about the matter in my piece of May 17, 2015:
“Times have changed and the unions also need a reality check. The NLC has argued in the past that while it isn’t opposed to ending fuel subsidy, it wants certain measures put in place before such an action can be contemplated. Among other things it wants the refineries working, an efficient public transportation system as well as other welfare measures in place first.
“While these are not unreasonable demands they are not very practical. Fixing the existing refineries or building new ones could take anything from 24 to 36 months. Those who would like to see new refineries sprout also have to realise that investors are not philanthropists. It is a non-starter to think they would be attracted to a system that expects them to pour billions into a project only for the state to fix the price at which they sell what they produce.
“Again, putting in place the sort of mass transit system that could move millions daily at a cheap rate could take up to five years – if not longer.
“In the interim as we wait to create the perfect conditions for a painless exit from wasteful subsidies, we are forced to continue with payments that the country cannot afford! It is a vicious cycle and not the right way to go.”
The issue remains the same. Another government – long after former President Olusegun Obasanjo started it – decides to raise the pump price of petrol and deregulate the downstream sector of the oil industry.
Every time that happened, labour unions successfully got the leaders of the day to roll back the measures without addressing the fundamental problems. The pain was postponed but so also was the evil day.
In 2012, after days of street protests and the transformation of Fawehinmi Square, Ojota, Lagos into a symbolic center of active resistance, then President Goodluck Jonathan’s government caved into and slashed petrol price after a surprise hike on New Year Day.
Just like others before him, he merely pushed the deregulation ball further down the line – as though a time would come when it would be convenient to deregulate. But that time is often illusory.
Any observant person knows that beyond the sloganeering of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), a lot has changed in the country over the last 12 months.
President Buhari has described it as the worst economic crisis Nigeria has faced since 1960. He rates our present travails as far worse than anything we experienced during his brief military reign – and that is saying a lot.
Today, Nigeria and Nigerians are poorer than they were any time in the last 16, not necessarily because of anything contrived in the last 11 months, but more because of our profligacy and wrong choices over the last two decades.
The vast majority of our people face a crisis of existence. Many are engaged in a hardscrabble daily grind to eke out something for themselves and their families to survive another day.
No doubt, the increase in prices would impact them negatively. But the NLC strike option which would keep them at home penniless for an indeterminate period is the impracticable option.
Union leaders in announcing the strike warned Nigerians to ‘stockpile’ food for a long struggle against a so-called ‘neo-liberal agenda.’ These pretentious, high-sounding words don’t distill what this struggle is about in a way that the Danfo driver who lives on his daily takings can digest.
If he was to make a choice between embarking on some esoteric journey with his would-be saviours, or wheel out his jalopy for another day or earnings, it is a no-brainer what his choice would.
This was where the unions made their first miscalculation – using the same old tactics without realizing that the times in which we live call for a change of tack. Someone made this wise-crack: NLC leaders asking people to stockpile food didn’t realize that workers who hadn’t been paid for months were in no position to stockpile anything.
Consider also that the workers and civil society coalition that successfully brought the government to its knees in 2012 no longer exists. The NLC has since become factionalised – with some of the more powerful unions pledging allegiance to the Joe Ajaero-led group. The unions never had this problem in the last 16 years.
Some notable leaders of the then opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) who gleefully fired up protesters at the Ojota park with incendiary speeches are now in government.
It would have been wise to fix that fractured alliance before taking on a behemoth that is the federal government. Many of those ACN types had become hardened by many years in the opposition wilderness and thought nothing of standing in the sun for hours – hurling verbal grenades at the government of the day.
Fast-forward to 2016. There’s a new opposition in town. This group would have been the natural allies of the NLC as it tried to take down a supposedly unpopular policy. But somehow I just can’t picture PDP fat cats after 16 years of delicate living, trudging in the hot sun with some militant unionists.
A little introspection, instead of charging arrogantly into battle on presumptions of its invincibility could have saved NLC the embarrassment and demystification it now faces.
