Following the week long National strike and mass protests
spearheaded by the Nigeria Labour Congress, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria
and their allies in the Labour & Civil Society Coalition, LASCO, in January
2012, there have been a lot of reviews in the mass media about how the actions
were managed. Indeed, even President Jonathan has also joined the fray recently
with the insensitive claim that it was food, music and comedy that attracted
people to join the protests.
We recall that the trade unions, as represented by the NLC
and TUC were specific in their demands that culminated in the national strike
and protests, which followed the mindless sudden increase in the price of
Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol from N65 to N145 per litre as a
direct consequence of the removal of subsidy on the same product by the Federal
Government on the first day of the year 2012.
The two labour centres had meetings of the their National
Executive Council, which simultaneously directed a national strike and mass
protests be organized and coordinated by the two centres to protest the price
increase and removal of subsidy on petroleum products. And until these demands
are met, the strike and protests should continue. These were the two clear
demands and the leadership of NLC did not only consult with LASCO, the
coalition was indeed represented at the NEC meeting where the strike and
actions were declared based on these two demands.
When the national strike and protests started as planned, civil
society groups organized rallies and protests, particularly in Lagos, Abuja,
Kano, Kaduna and Ibadan. These groups had various names and nomenclature.
Prominent among them were the Save Nigeria Group, led by Pastor Tunde Bakare
and the Occupy Nigeria Group. The demand common to these groups was regime
change, which was not part of labour’s demands.
Before anyone can call for regime change, there must be an
alternative regime clear, popular, dependable and acceptable by all opposition
groups. There must have been several discussions based on the programme or agenda
good enough and acceptable as a viable alternative to the regime that needed to
be changed.
These were clearly absent. But leaders of these groups kept
playing with the slogan, encouraged perhaps by the events in North Africa where
popular and well coordinated mass protests uprooted sit tight regimes. The Arab
Spring is not artless either. It took years of protests and good planning,
albeit clandestine.
Without the strike and mass participation of workers across
the country, it would have been near impossibility to have a crowd as large as
the ones seen in Lagos and other major protest centres. It was certainly not
the attraction of free food or music, as espoused by President Jonathan in an
attempt to underscore the import of the protests. Mr. President may have been
bewildered and overwhelmed by the deceit of security reports and wrong advice
and could therefore not know the extent of the pains bad policies has unleashed
on the people coupled with the timing of his government’s decision to inflict further
pains through hike in the price of petrol. The unemployed will not require food
to join a protest that ultimately will lead to policy reversals that will
guarantee him a brighter future.
Mr. President clearly exposed the extent of his little
knowledge of the worries and aches of the rest of the country as majority of
our people groan in hardships inflicted on us by anti people policies of not
just his government, but all others before his.
The civil society groups, certainly not those in LASCO, also can’t
do an honest self appraisal of the January actions reading through some of the
articles in the media. And if we can’t do this, we will be farther than we
think from liberation.
The unions as led by the labour centres foresaw the weakness
of demands for regime change and the reality of losing a battle from the onset
will not encourage any serious labour centre to make such demands. You don’t
demand for regime or system change; you organize for it. You prepare everything
including the alternative before making such demands.
The demand itself lacked organizational coordination and
insisting on going ahead will mean offering the lives of protesters for state
slaughtering, which the state was ready for.
Rather than do an honest appraisal, some people have opted
for the convenience of heaping all blames on the trade union movement, which
didn’t make such demands as regime or system change.
For instance, when the National Union of Petroleum and
Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, an affiliate of NLC blocked supply of fuel to
Abuja in August it was interpreted to mean they were fighting for subsidy
thieves, whereas the union’s demands were five and not just on fuel subsidy
payment. The union’s demand for payment of subsidy to genuine companies was
based on the fact that there were threats to the employment of their members in
those companies who had threatened to stop paying salaries because of the
financial burden they claimed to be confronting as a result of the cost of
importing what we should be producing locally. Aside this, the union’s other
demands were: nonpayment of salaries and threat to jobs; state of the nation’s
refineries and roads; labour issues in Shell Petroleum and Chevron; and restructuring
of loans of depot owners and oil marketers
All these demands are basically in the interest of the
workers and the country at large. The union did not demand for payment of
subsidy to those already known to have used subsidy funds for other things
other than supply of petroleum products.
So, when one read a
piece written by Ijeoma Nwogwugwu which was mischievously titled “Economic
Saboteurs in Our Mist” in This Day newspaper of 27th August 2012
where she accused the NLC and NUPENG of sabotage and also implied that the duo
have become a burden on the Nigerian economy, it was very obvious that she was
writing from two perspectives. One is that she has maintained a pathological
disgust for the NLC and the entire movement since the struggle against fuel
price hike started under the leadership of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. The second
is that she lacked understanding of the movement.
The strike NUPENG had was in real fact to ensure the economy
is not overburdened with higher unemployment. We still recall that NLC have
consistently called for the prosecution of those indicted by House of
Representatives soon after the Lawal led committee submitted its report. The
NLC made presentations to the committee during its sittings. In all the
presentations, the NLC had always called for proper investigation, prosecution
and appropriate punishment of everyone indicted.
By the way, we need to be reminded that the committee and
indeed all the post-subsidy removal committees constituted either by the
legislature or the executives were all direct products of agitations by the NLC
and its allies. So, how could anyone assume the same NLC will agitate for the
freedom of oil subsidy thieves, majority of whom are yet to be arrested?
Interestingly, Ijeoma also accused the leadership of the
National Union of Electricity Employees and its members of sabotage at the
Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN. To Ijeoma, the union’s consistent
agitation for a probe into the disappearance of the workers’ pension funds
constituted sabotage. And now that a Federal Government panel has traced part
of the pension fund to a bank in London, Ijeoma is yet to retract herself on
her false conclusions. From the “resignation” of Prof. Bart Nnaji to the
discovery of the missing pension funds, the union and its members have been
proven to be patriots rather than saboteurs as claimed by Ijeoma.
The labour movement will continue to agitate against subsidy
removal because that’s the only way a country so badly managed can be propelled
to the path of strong economy, petroleum being a critical driving force.
While you can dismiss Ijeoma as a conservative writer, one
cannot wish off. Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim who is close to the movement.
In his write up titled: “Is the Fuel Subsidy Cabal Too Powerful?”
Jibrin alleged that the marketers or those he called “mega thieves” paid NUPENG
to call the strike under reference. He went further to claim that NLC
“chickened out” of the struggle against subsidy removal.
We can’t make progress in any situation where everyone is
assumed to have a price. Do NUPENG need funding from the marketers before they
stand up for their members interests? Jubrin should have taken his time to look
at the demands of the union. Were their demands protective of any mega thief?
All the five demands made by the union were all in the interest of members of
the union, the industry where they have a stake and the entire country.
And we must be factual when alleging compromise under the
influence of financial inducement. It is an easy and lazy way to destroy people
and organizations; and clearly Jubrin’s write up is loathed with this
intention.
Jubrin should know that no trade union anywhere in the world
will ever call a strike that will not end on the negotiation table. And that’s
what the NLC and TUC did in January. The January strike had specific demands
and those demands were subjected to several painstaking negotiations at the end
of which the price of petrol was unilaterally reduced from N145 to N97, even
when negotiations were still on. That was
a clear blackmail on the part of government because should the strike continue,
the movement risk losing followership. The trade unions know the limit of a
strike and Jubrin should know this.
If there were threats to massively murder protesters, are we
organizationally prepared to sustain mass action or even a strike?
If anyone should be accused of chickening out, it should be
the likes of Jubrin who was either relaxing in the comfort of his office at Center
for Democracy and Development or riding in his air-conditioned car behind
protesters mainly for the purpose of taking photographs of protesters, which
eventually get to donor agencies from the comfort of what they call “situation
oom”.
And let us come home with the truth, most of the
“organizations” we refer to as Civil Society Organisations are not. They are
mere one person, media driven “organisations” preferably referred to as MONGO,
which is My Own Non-Governmental Organisation or DINGO – Donor Initiated Non
Governmental Organisation. Some are even GINGO – Government Initiated Non
Government Organisations. These “organizations” are loud in the media,
particularly the social media. They prefer the comfort of their offices, if any,
than attending meetings or mobilizing for popular protests. They have the
“best” analysis when it comes to polemics on social revolution but too far from
the mass of our people to understand what it takes to get people on to the
streets for mass protests. These categories of activists are the ones who will
accuse the labour movement of chickening out of the January actions. Such
persons and CSOs can’t be found in LASCO where serious mass organizations in
the Joint Action Front exist. We challenge Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim to give proof
that he mobilized anyone for the January protests.
The January protests opened a new beginning in our collective
struggle and before the fire next time, we need to understand clearly what we
collectively desire and with whom we need to place our trust.
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