For Nigeria at 63, organized Labour had a bouquet of spikes — an “indefinite” strike that nevertheless resonates with its long-suffering members.
Poor folks! They are riled up to mauling an instant Judas (the sitting government), for a long-standing economic angst! The question though is after the strike, what?
Now, compare the Labour spikes with the nest of feathers, thrust onto the citizens, in President Bola Tinubu’s balmy Independence speech. Different strokes?
The way Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), marshalled his troops to at least get the one crippling strike he had craved since May 29, reminds you of Karl Marx — that bit about history repeating itself as farce.
To boot, he finally got to his side the Trade Union Congress (TUC) — TUC nobles with the NLC rabble! — more perhaps for the TUC tiff with the Lagos government over the state’s Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) ban, than any ardour to go on a strike. Indeed, my enemy’s enemy is my friend!
Now, put Ajaero side by side with Adams Oshiomhole, now a senator of the Federal Republic, but then NLC boss. Throw in their common anatomy — little guys that boss giants around!
Then add, as spice, fuel subsidy — clearly the prime issue of Nigeria’s 4th Republic — with its co-irritant: importation of petroleum products, when Nigeria could more rationally — and cheaply — refine its crude oil, and all you have is the perfect storm.
Oshiomhole fought President Olusegun Obasanjo to a standstill on petrol pricing yo-yo, with the government reversing price hikes after strikes, but not to pre-strike levels.
In this Labour-government show down, Ajaero would hope to go one farther: force President Tinubu to junk oil subsidy removal, shove down pump prices to pre-May 29 levels — or otherwise face an indefinite strike that would cripple the economy!
Still, how many days does NLC think it could get its members off work before fatigue — euphemism for search for daily bread — sets in? Even in Oshiomhole’s triumphant days, strikes hardly lasted for three days before troubling signs of sudden abortion.
Besides, NLC has asked its members — and the general public — to stock up. But really how many have the capacity to do that with the present economic throes?
Even those that could, how much could they possibly “stock up” to sustain an “indefinite” strike?
And after “stock up” and triumphant crippling, how can a stark economy, further drained, support workers’ demands for better deals?
Ajaero craving an Oshiomhole-era triumph is no more than a craven dream — bold cowardice in rushing at new challenges with old methods. In such circumstances, history can only repeat itself as farce!
That’s the thing, though: times have changed but Labour is fixated with set past practices, instead of thinking anew, to get more for its members.
Still, none of all these suggests organized Labour is the sole sinner, while the government it contends with is a saint — far from it.
If you remove subsidy without local refining; and float the Naira such that every kobo buys far less than hitherto, then brace yourself for a stiff social cost!
The first manifestation of that is anger from the hoi polloi — the first (and worst) to be hit by spiralling prices, no matter how much that jolt could push a strategy that may eventually improve their lives.
Then, you risk Labour leaders, stuck in old ways but deathly scared to think anew, milking the raw emotions, and basking in popular roar, as they tear at the government for “anti-people” policies.
Between earnest unionism and artful dissembling, there is but a thin line!
But pray: how can a government that just earned its legitimacy, from a tough election, from the same people, suddenly turn rogue and unfeeling on them?
That’s hardly logical. Still, emotion is mushy rush to hurting answers, especially when the pocket burns!
Aside from eager “critics” and sundry anarchists, feasting on yet another “pro-people” crusading, add baleful foes diving into the fray for cheap and nasty politics.
Ram in too the hybrid agitators, in this season of virulent partisanship.
Pray, who does Ajaero represent — NLC, as he postures? Peter Obi’s Labour Party, which Joe and co blindly backed but who lost at the polls, but continues to deny the obvious? Or both in different degrees, as cynically convenient!
But after all the high drama, after all the thunder, after all the tempest, the economy is no magic the government must quickly conjure, or be roasted at the stakes.
That is the fundamental folly of rushing into strikes, as Ajaero’s NLC has been bristling to do. That again reinforces that earlier question: after the strike, then what?
The poor economy, integral and systemic, demands a productive Labour-government partnership, anchored on mutual trust. It’s a critical juncture at which old thinking must yield to new: patient collaboration, against hasty confrontation.
Still, it’s hard times. So, the government should — indeed, must — concede to the people as much quick reliefs as possible.
Incidentally, from the president’s Independence broadcast, the government already offered some reliefs: workers to get additional N25, 000 for six months; the expanded National Social Register (NSR) to now accommodate 15 million Nigerian households, and compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered buses deployed to down transport costs.
Salary awards and CNG buses are two prominent demands on the Labour strike menu. Later, Femi Gbajabiamila, the presidential chief of staff, announced the raise of the wage award, from N25, 000 to lowest earners to N35, 000 to every worker, low or high.
Still, the people too must accept that initial pains come with tough measures to crack hard times.
Why the six months duration for the wage awards, though? Could it be that in six months, some local refining would have been in place, leading to lower pump prices of petrol, thus tamping down the present high inflation?
Inasmuch as the the government may not fully expose its strategy, a clear timeline, detailing when the many refineries in the works will come on stream, should help to shore up public confidence, sympathy and eventual support.
Besides, that alone will help defang Labour’s eternal refinery agitations, public or private — no crime, though — and force fresher thinking on union leaders, so as to extract the best deals, in challenging times, for their members.
So, while this government has the bounden duty to fix the economy — President Tinubu is the first to tell folks not to pity him, since he campaigned hard for the job — changed attitudes, on both sides, are imperative.
Enter then, a new cold pragmatism that thinks through the harsh reality.
Exit, fond dreams that purport strikes could prise open resources simply not there.
Both the government and Labour should tread this new collaborative path all of the way.
