The Federal Government has for months been fencing on a tightrope with Organised Labour over the delicate matter of welfare and reliefs for the larger populace caught in the vice grip of a strangulating economy.
This follows on government’s decision to scrap the much-vexed petrol subsidy regime and a further decision to place the local currency, the naira, on a free float, just as President Bola Tinubu assumed office on 29 May 2023.
Economy experts say both moves by President Tinubu are sound, taken in good faith, and will bring reliefs to the Nigerian economy and people in the medium to long term if well managed.
The same experts, however, say that the decisions will cause economic storms, pain and grief across the land in the immediate and call for buffers, also referred to as palliatives, reliefs and cushions.
On this matter, the Federal Government and Organised Labour have been in ping-pong, exchanging high and low balls to all points on the table of play, with varying levels of calm, ferocity and ingenuity.
In all of this time, the larger masses of Nigerians watch with mouths agape and pointed to the heavens, waiting for succour from the authority above.
In its transactions with Labour, the Tinubu administration has been deploying the alternating interface strategy and accomplishing some movement and some motion, but clearly more movement than motion.
The essence of this strategy, it appears, is to buy time by coaxing Labour to push forward stated timelines and suspend overhanging strikes.
The strategy involves recirculating government functionaries or groups who have been involved in inconclusive or stalemated meetings with Labour, and presenting new faces, in further meetings, to avoid an overhang of negative emotions or bad blood, which could dampen fresh talks going forward.
Over the past months, Minister of Labour and Employment, Simon Lalong, Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Senator Adams Oshiomole, who is a former labour leader, Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, as well as President Tinubu himself have interfaced with Labour in the course of managing the ongoing crisis.
Members of the House of Representatives under their then leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, had also met with Organised Labour last September in an effort to stem off an impending strike.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives again came into the matter, adjourning plenary over the ongoing strike by Nigerian labour unions, to enable the leadership and members to take steps towards ending the strike.
The adjournment came shortly after the consideration and adoption of a motion of “Matters of Urgent Public Importance”, moved by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, at resumed plenary.
On Thursday evening, Organised Labour suspended its indefinite nationwide strike which kicked off Tuesday and saw banks, federal and state parastals, as well as public schools and other establishments shut down altogether, or working in fits and starts, for two days.
The decision to call off the strike was reached at a meeting between executives of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) on Wednesday, which deliberated on the outcome of an earlier interface with the Federal Government led by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu.
Ribadu was presented as yet another new face in the Federal Government’s alternating interface strategy with Labour.
Organised Labour, for its part, has been expressing distaste for ambiguous statements and promises from government and insisting on, or detailing specific reliefs required, in terms of content, quantum and timelines.
This applies in some measure to issues such as wage increases, the repair of refineries, palliatives, and the rollout of public transportation vehicles which run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) which is cheaper than the more commonly used petrol and is expected to drive down the cost of transport.
All said, the Federal Government has made some pragmatic and commendable policies and taken some positive action, such as the approval of N35,000 provisional wage award for all treasury-paid Federal Government workers for six months, the approval of palliatives and the rollout of the first tranche of preliminary infrastructure for the national CNG mass transit project.
Still, however, government needs to be clearer, more explicit and more forthright in its utterances and to make further progress in matching its words with action, so as to gain the trust and confidence of all components of Nigerian society. To do otherwise would amount to squeezing oneself through a high and small window right beside a wide and open door – a cumbersome, hazardous and needless enterprise.
Forthrightness will help to oil the wheels of national progress which are currently squeaking and squealing in friction, discord and disrepair.
