Here’s what happens when Labour leaders are uneducated on economy

The Nigerian Labour Union (NLC) is a big bully cat that feels it is the government of the masses. They feed mostly on the sentiment of ignorant majority (people who understands next to nothing about policies), to twist the truth, about policies that potentially could benefit all.

There is also this sense of responsibility about the way they challenge government policies, creating an aura of conventional solver of people’s dilemma. They are always reactive, subjective and condemning. The result of this is that at the end of every fight the masses come off worse than they were.

In their countless battles against the government, the masses lost-from minimum wage to fuel subsidy removal to conducting election amongst themselves-they not only have failed themselves but also have failed the masses.

Nobody is paying anybody any minimum wage in the country today. At least we all recall the shambles that followed after the National Council of State (NCS) in November 2010 okayed for approval N18,000 minimum wage demanded by the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC). Economist are still baffled at the arithmetic Labour used to arrive at that figure for every worker across all states of the federation, including those states that could barely generate enough income to buy petrol for their governor’s car convoy.

One faction of the NLC is currently drumming war songs for a fight against State governments that haven’t paid workers ‘minimum wage’ while the other faction is talking of engaging the incoming government led by Muhammadu Buhari for another increment in minimum wage. This is like asking a doctor to cure a dead man of the malaria that killed him-laughable. Where will the state government-already dead-broke from brazen attack on their treasury get the money from? Or you (Labour) don’t know that Nigeria is a poor man now? In any case which Labour is doing the drumming, because Nigeria currently have two labour unions. The Union is still divided amongst itself for simple reason-corrupted election process. They are corrupt too, but they talk of corruption as that of government responsibility.

Fuel subsidy? Your guess is as good as mine-it is either that corruption is driving their tacit grand standing on removal of the ‘nonsense’ or they are fatally uneducated on the issue.

Everywhere around the universe, governments are taking the opportunity created by sharp declines in oil prices to beat a hasty retreat from subsidy. They are in turn saving up more money by either reducing or completely cutting off subsidy. In Nigeria, the Labour Union (I don’t know which one to point to now) says they will declare ‘war’ on government if it attempts to remove the subsidy.

My take on this is that their ‘noise’ is born from the fact that majority of the Labour people see that as an opportunity to seek relevance. I have not seen any credible or acceptable argument on why subsidy should stay from them-whether it is included in the 2015 appropriation Bill or not. It is one of the necessary move by any government that is already broke like Nigeria.

Here this argument for instance by one of the Deputy Presidents of the NLC (names with held) when he spoke to journalists recently: ‘the organized labour believe the government had never subsidized petroleum products.” He didn’t say why it should stay, just “no we don’t want subsidy.”

Where is he coming from-Mars? So all those figures in the public domain and the huge subsidy scandal that we all witnessed was a comedy performed by Ali Baba-One of Nigeria’s leading comedian? I have not seen a written coherent argument on why government should not remove fuel subsidy. Just noise about strikes.

This same labour that is ‘shouting’ foul about everything is deaf, blind and dumb on the current fuel situation in the country. There is no instance of where there is a pronouncement on any solution, questions about the petrol crisis or the various ridiculous prices Nigerians pay to get a litre of petrol. Again, my guess is that they think that the Nigerian masses don’t use or need petrol?

My dear brothers and sisters in the NLC, there is no easy solution, but the removal of fuel subsidy is a good way to start. Then the country can begin to feel truly like a country that can survive without oil.

Charles Ike-Okoh