Pray, why are the Federal Government and labour leaders splitting hairs over a matter that should not take so much of their time? They are unnecessarily running the risk of getting high blood pressure.
While the Federal Government is doing overtime, and yet unable to agree on a minimum national wage for years, state governors hide behind one finger, insisting that they cannot even pay the initial N60,000 minimum wage that Organised Labour rejected. And where Edo State is disposed to paying N70,000, Cross River State is offering N40,000.
The argument of the Federal Government that state governments should be able to pay higher wages because of the higher monthly allocation of funds they receive from the Federal Account Allocation Committee, is valid though.
After the Federal Government upped its offer to N62,000, Organised Labour countered with N250,000, though the body language of Festus Osifo, President of the Trade Union Congress, suggests a willingness to negotiate.
Labour initially suggested N615,000, before shaving it to N494,000, and then N250,000, while the Organised Private Sector, appearing somewhat distracted, seems to agree with the N60,000 initially offered by the Federal Government.
Surprisingly, no one has specifically explained if whatever figures being bandied about are just the basic salary, or if they include or exclude non-taxable housing, transport and feeding allowances that statutorily accompany basic salaries.
It looks as if civil servants in the Federal Government bureaucracy just love to have issues, going back and forth year-in-year-out, over the monster of national minimum wage that has never been sorted from one government to the other.
Civil servants found a clever way to manipulate everyone else to fight their cause, while they stay squeaky clean, as if they have no interest or skin in the game, apart from just facilitating the process of the negotiations between Labour and the government.
They have also found a way to afflict politicians who come into government without a clear thought about how to handle issues of salaries and wages of, not just civil servants, but also the generality of workers throughout Nigeria.
Note also, that no one is paying close attention to the astronomical salaries, allowances (including something they call “hardship allowance”) and other perquisites that politicians, like President, governors, ministers, legislators and their sundry assistants and advisers are paid.
Information about the remuneration of a Nigerian Senator is probably the best kept secret in the world! Even Senators who are no longer serving act as if they have sworn to an oath that forbids disclosure of what they earned while in the National Assembly.
The Senators hide under the oath of secrecy, which they hold almost with the dedication of Italian mafiosi, bound by omerta, the code of secrecy that is usually enforced in the strictest and most brutal manner.
Civil servants appear to just always love the unending drama that the media helps them to escalate out of proportion. The regular ritual of hysteria always derails the discussions and negotiations away from what should really be the focus of the perennial false starts.
A nonagenarian friend, a former top corporate player, thinks the Federal Government should simply fix the floor of a national minimum wage and allow employers, including the Federal Government, state governments and sundry corporate organisations, to take their cue therefrom.
Section 34 of the Exclusive Legislative List of the 1999 Constitution gives the Federal Government the singular responsibility to “(prescribe) a national minimum wage for the federation or any part thereof.”
Also, the National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission was established by Act 99 of 1993 to deal with issues relating to salaries and wages of all Nigerian workers, and not only government workers. So, why is the whole machinery of the Presidency going into an assignment that has already been given to a statutory agency of government?
Instead of involving the ministers of Finance, Budget and Labour in the fray, the NSIWC should simply fix a minimum wage, below which no employer can go, while sectoral labour unions agree acceptable, and possibly higher, wages with their employers.
This way, the new-found weapon of massive strike, the National Union of Electricity Employees, would have only engaged employers in the electricity sector and not become a willing destructive tool in the hand of Organised Labour that is incapable of fighting its own cause.
This locates negotiations within sectoral groups, while the Federal Government avoids the bad press that comes with inserting itself in the middle of unnecessary turbulence. The government will never win the wages argument with Organised Labour.
The central labour organisation should only concentrate on broad “helicopter view” issues while allowing the sectoral unions to sort out matters within their industries. Where this fails, the central labour leaders may step in.
The Federal Government should have only been negotiating with its own sectoral unions, the Nigeria Civil Service Union, of junior workers, and the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, after setting the minimum wage.
Recall that when the Federal Government raised the salaries of federal civil servants by 25 to 35 per cent on January 1, 2024, there were no comments from Organised Labour. And the civil servants, for whom Organised Labour is now fighting, simply acquiesced, and took the pay raise calmly.
Dr Chris Ngige, erstwhile Minister of Labour and Employment, seemed to take delight in minding other people’s business, drawing flack from the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who accused him of insulting lecturers and spreading fake news about the eight-month long ASUU strike in 2022.
Anyway, while most labour leaders have jetted off Switzerland for the International Labour Organisation at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the ball is now in the court of President Bola Tinubu, who probably has till June 14, when the ILO Conference will end.
Everything suggests that Mr Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, has another round of punishing math to come up with an offer that the unions will not be able to refuse.
To make an offer that the unions will find acceptable, the government and the private sector must take the following objectives of the ILO into consideration: Promoting jobs; maintaining rights at work; extending social protection; and promoting social dialogue.
Somewhere in all these objectives, a fair, realistic and acceptable living wage can be located. Maybe the place to start to address this task is to work out a comprehensive plan to revive the comatose economy of Nigeria.
The Accelerated Stabilisation and Advancement Plan, said to have been compiled by the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, to address challenges affecting the economic reforms and to stimulate the economy, is a good idea.
But now that the document has been denied, (maybe) because of its rumoured inclusion of an N5.4 billion petrol subsidy, Nigeria’s battered economy shall remain an orphan with no hope, even in this era of Renewed Hope!
If you went through the ASAP document, you could have thought it provided the much expected fodder that could foster Nigeria’s long-term economic growth, while also dealing with immediate to short-term goals.
That, and the rolling template of the Cost of Living Adjustment, could provide the guide to overcome the hullabaloo over minimum national wage. The new remuneration template should reflect the tumbling down of the Naira.
The inflation in the country is too obvious to ignore.
