LABOUR-NIGERIA: Millions Threaten to Strike

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Apr 11 1999 (IPS) - Millions of workers in Nigeria have threatened to go on strike next week over non-payment of a new minimum wage which they say they have not received since January.

Adams Oshiomohole, the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), says the strike, which begins Tuesday, will go on until the workers get their new monthly wage of 3000 naira, approved by the government of General Abdulsalaam Abubakar in September last year.

One US Dollar is equal to about 90 dollars.

The workers, in 30 of Nigeria’s 36 states, took the decision this week after learning that their colleagues in the federal government have started receiving their new wages.

Before the new wage, the workers used to take home less than 1000 naira per month.

The government, which employs more than 10 million workers, initially set the new minimum wage at 5,200 naira, but later cut it down to 3,500 naira for federal workers and 3000 naira for state workers, because of “the dwindling price of oil”, Nigeria’s main foreign exchange earner.

Labour leaders argued that the decision to cut down the new minimum wage was unacceptable to Nigerian workers as the approved wage of 3,500 naira was “unrealistic and insufficient to alleviate workers’ sufferings”.

Only the workers in the oil-rich states of Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers as well as in Lagos, the nation’s commercial capital and in Abuja, the seat of federal government, get 3,500 naira.

The disparity in the wage structure has enraged the workers in the other states. Between February and March, not less than 16 industrial actions were embarked upon over the disparity and government’s refusal to pay the wages.

The police in the northern state of Taraba had to use tear gas on Apr 7 to disperse protesting workers demanding payment of their arrears.

Two buildings were torched in Jalingo, the state capital of Taraba, as the protesters tried to break through a line of security guards to the office of the military administrator.

In neighbouring state of Adamawa, top government officials took to their heels to escape thousands of angry workers, who marched to their offices demanding the implementation of the new wage structure.

The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health in Jalingo was beaten up by the mob during the demonstration, on Apr 7.

Some states, unable to meet the costs, have warned that they will lay off workers in order to implement the new wage structure. The northern state of Yobe, for example, has threatened to lay off 40 percent of its workforce if workers insist on the new structure.

In Kwara State, the military administrator, Lt. Col. Rasheed Shekoni, says no fewer than 60 percent of the workforce in his state will be laid off to enable him pay the wages.

These decisions have enraged labour leaders.

Sylvester Ejiofor, a member of the Public Service Joint Negotiating Council, accused some of the state Military Administrators of helping to incite workers to embark on industrial action through their utterances and actions.

“The Military Administrators are behaving as if they want to maximise enough money for themselves rather than pay the civil servants a living wage. They have flagrantly repudiated agreements signed with their state councils,” he told IPS in Lagos this week.

He said some of the military administrators, conscious of their short tenure in office, have adopted a “take or leave it attitude”.

Nigeria’s military leader, General Abubakar has pledged to step down on May 29, after handing over power to the first civilian president in 15 years.