Amidst cries of insufficient funds, the failure to broker a deal between state governors and state labour congresses over minimum wage has seen a plethora of strikes with more in the offing. Chibuzo Ukaibe, in this report re-examines the issues.
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After their meeting on July 15, 2011, the Governors’ Forum, comprising governors of the 36 states, agreed to comply with the provisions of the Minimum Wage Act. They further agreed that individual states should commence payment.
The import was for the states to work out a deal with their various states labour congresses. The kick off of the new wage regime was August this year.
Before then, however, some state governors had explained their inability to pay citing insufficient funds.
“The payment of the N18, 000 new minimum wage will be difficult based on what is accrued to the states from the Federation Account,” Niger State governor, Babangida Aliyu had said in May, 2011.
This came at a time the federal government urged the states to plough money into a sovereign wealth fund, a call that has pitted the governors against the president.
Some of the governors have argued that there is disparity in the revenue accruals among most states, citing the Niger Delta states and Lagos State as states which can comfortably pay.
The governors of states that do not fall into this category said they may not be to pay the same amount as those states earning bumper allocations.
Call it poor fore-sight syndrome or a ploy to win elections, the governors in the heat of 2011 elections had agreed to pay the minimum wage when the bill was presented by President Goodluck Jonathan to the national assembly.
All that seem to have changed shortly after the elections.
This raised the radar of negotiations between state governments and their respective labour organisations.
At press time, about 10 states are currently on strike including Imo, Ekiti, Yobe, Adamawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Ogun, Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu states, while other state governments and their state Labour are having difficulty striking a bargain. In this category are Benue, Kano (which just called of its own strike), Abia, Jigawa, Niger and Plateau States.
Not even the state of former labour leader, Adams Oshiomole was spared, as it was after a heated argument that the governor yielded to the demands of labour. Same applied in Osun , Akwa Ibom, Ogun, Rivers, Borno, Gombe and Sokoto States, where they have had their own rough patches. Ondo was able to reach a truce as it agreed that the least paid worker in the state would earn N14,000 while the N18,000 minimum wage would commence as soon as the state’s revenue increased.
A sore point was in Enugu where a breakdown of negotiations between labour and the state government grabbed headlines as national labour leaders (who had waded into the negotiations in the state) were prevented from leaving the Golden Value Hotel by armed policemen.
But the state police said the armed policemen were there to protect the labour leaders because of the high rate of insecurity in the state.
Reportedly, it took the intervention of the President to secure their release, just as labour declared war on them.
The labour president, Abdul Waheed Umar said “on behalf of the labour movement in Nigeria, an industrial action is hereby declared in Enugu State. This is no ordinary strike; all essential duties must be stopped.”
The state was to be used as an example to other South East governors, who are foot dragging on the payment.
Describing the strike as uncalled for, the state’s spokesman, Chuks Ugwoke, said the government had already started the 18,500 payment for the workers.
Perhaps in a show of solidarity, the South East governors summoned a meeting days after in Enugu, but the outcome was reportedly deadlocked because only one out of the five states was ready to pay the wage.
The governors were uncomfortable with what they considered the intrusion of the national labour in their states.
However, the secretariat of the Governors’ forum reveals that they are working out ways to implement the new National Minimum Wage Act.
Varied options have been muted, however. While some states have intensified their internally-generated revenue drive (via aggressive tax regimes), others have begun the audit of their workforce to eliminate “ghost workers.” Most states have started the verification and audit of its civil service, aimed at sorting out genuine workers from the ghost ones along with the redundant ones.
Other measures hinted at are the removal of controversial fuel subsidy and the re-adjustment of the revenue allocation formula.
The present sharing formula allocates 52.68% of revenue to the Federal Government while the states, 26.72% local government councils have 20.60%. The governors in the wake of the minimum wage saga have been in the forefront of agitations for its review to reflect current realities.
The revenue sharing formula is supposed to be reviewed every five years.
But labour has insisted on unconditional implementation of the act.
Only last week, labour held a mass rally over suspicisions that the Federal Government (FG) intended to increase fuel prices by over 200 percent.
Deputy President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Kiri Mohammed, in Abuja, said that the remaining part of the so-called subsidy, is meant to recover the cost of freight, insurance demurrage and port charges, which were incurred by the failure of the government to refine locally.
The body described the renewed plan by the Jonathan administration to hike fuel prices, “as an opportunity cost of selling all the crude oil produced in the country at cheap prices and importing finished petroleum products at exorbitant costs.”
He said: “Nigerians have learnt from the so-called deregulation of kerosene and diesel, that the deregulation of petrol would only lead to higher prices and is attributed to the non availability of the commodity and its control by a cabal.
“The Federal Government is making the worn out argument of the need to remove subsidy.
This was the same trick played on the Nigerian people by the General Ibrahim Babangida military regime in the 80s under the tragedy called Structural Adjustment Programme ( SAP ).”
Touching on the new minimum wage, Mohammed directed its members in nine states of the federation, such as Imo, Ekiti, Yobe, Adamawa, Kaduna, Katisna, Ebonyi, Anambra and Enugu states, to embark on indefinite strike until their demands are met.
Mohammed, who also urged states like Benue, Kano and Plateau, to perfect the ongoing negotiation, berated Governors Rabiu Kwankwanso of Kano State, and Sullivan Chime of Enugu State, for engaging armed thugs to thwart demonstration in their states.
The governors have also tried to keep a distance from the proposition as it is hugely unpopular. According to Edo state governor, Adams Oshiomhole, who supported the unconditional implementation of the minimum wage law, he discredited allegations that state governors, through the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), were angling to remove oil subsidy as condition for them to implement the minimum wage.
“The issue of deregulation and removal of subsidy has always been on, it has always been a policy of the Federal Government which Labour has always opposed but the issue of minimum wage is already a law and it must be obeyed by all. The minimum wage has become a law and governors must be seen to be obeying the law and the law must not be convenient for anyone before it will be implemented. In Edo State, we are not negotiating whether it will be implemented.
“We will certainly implement the minimum wage. In the next few weeks, we would have finished negotiating with the unions, not on whether to implement the minimum wage or not, because it will definitely be implemented, but to know how to implement it for those already above the minimum wage,’’ the Comrade Governor emphasised.
Adding his voice, gubernatorial candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria in Adamawa state, Engr. Markus Gundiri, told LEADERSHIP that “Any governor who feels he cannot pay minimum wage must actually be a governor that is not serious about what is happening because the remuneration of any civil servant or public office at all were prepared in tandem with the internal revenue generated in the country. They did not just prepare it off-hand. They used statistics which were collected as far as I am concerned, and that is why they all agreed that the government can pay N18,000 minimum wage. The issue is that the governors might not have a way of generating revenue in the state. And so they continue to expect money to come from the federal government.
“We must begin to generate your own revenue that is the basic thing. And believe me you will see that the money generated from the state will be much more than that given by the federal government if you are a serious minded governor. Look at the governor of Lagos state. That gentle man has generated a lot of internal revenue from the state.
‘Anything can be done if the governor is committed. I have that commitment that we can generate internal revenue in Adamawa state. You can now have control over your own revenue, do things your own way and change the lives of people. But it cannot be one year or two years. It can be in a period of at least 6 years,’ Gundiri stated.
Could the governors be stalling for time? Perhaps they are hoping that the current constitution amendment which the national assembly has regarded as top priority will give them the life line they need to deal with the challenge. Some of the key issues billed for amendment by the legislatures include revenue allocation, uniform minimum wage, and joint account. The senate president had quipped in his resumption address last week, whether the current revenue formula was equitable. Will a change in favour of the states enhance the deliverables to the people? Should power distribution be on the exclusive list? Shouldn’t states that invest in power generation be allowed to distribute? Noting the import of the situation and how timely too, the senate president said “we will not run away from the issues.”
The governors renowned to be the strongest power block will obviously unleash all their arsenals to make sure amendments which will see them getting more allocation are achieved.
Perhaps reaching a consensus with concrete commitment might buy them time just like in Ondo state. But time is what the workers seem not to have, having had to live with unfulfilled promises over the years and being at the receiving end of a political class that lead with very ostentations life style.
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