The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and their affiliates staged a peace protest, last week, against the adverse impact of the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu.
In this interview, Barr Adewole Ebenezer Adebayo, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Presidential flagbearer in the February general election speaks on the protest and the next line of action for Nigerians. Subair Mohammed reports.
What is your impression about the protest staged by the NLC and TUC against the removal of subsidy?
The issues at stake are of public concern. And the Labour unions, irrespective of what you might think of their leadership and their choices in recent times, still have a role in society. With the protest, the Labour Unions called the attention of the Federal government to the adverse effects of the subsidy removal on their members and indeed Nigerians.
Though there are some occasions where the interest of their members might coincide with the concerns of the public. So, members of the public might also want to align with them and express their minds to the government. I think the protest was okay. And with their engagement with the president after the protest, they appeared to be happy about it. When it comes to ventilating issues, the NLC/TUC through the protest tried to ventilate their issues to the president.
But whether the protest had ventilated these issues or not is another thing because the issues at hand are issues of economics. They are issues of government that were democratically elected. When you elect a government you elect them together with their advertised policies and when these policies have some effects you don’t like, you can vent back to the government and keep the dialogue going on with the government.
But what we do after the protest is more important than the protest. I think the way the government has responded has shown that the government too understands the issue. They are not taking so many days. You know, in the past, you had a protest that will last days upon days before junior people in government will intervene.
The government intervened at the highest level, and on the eve of the protest, there had been a national broadcast where the president tried to make his case. So, it is a democratic engagement. I think each person played their role. The role of the Labour leader is to remind the government that they represent a segment of the populace. The government also showed that they understand the labour leaders’ options. They may both agree with them, but the two of them looking at it together might be able to have a better view.
I think it’s been a long time since Nigerians protested. Many Nigerians have been hitching for the protest for a long time, so it gives them the room to exercise that right which could be in doubt sometimes when you don’t exercise them. A right to protest against your government is your right as a citizen. I think the people are hurting, and if the government is quick in its response in terms of policy changes as they were quick to respond to the protest, they might make more progress than otherwise.
After the protest, Labour leaders met with the president, do you think the outcome of the meeting of the president with the president was reassuring to warrant the Labour calling off the protest?
In the first instance, there shouldn’t have been any protest. This is because, during the electoral campaign, every adult Nigerian knew where each of the candidates was heading. If someone says I am going to eliminate fuel subsidy, unify the foreign exchange, I am going to do this, I am going to do that and he gets elected and does exactly that, that is natural.
The labour unions could join other stakeholders to speak to the government. They went out, maybe because they wanted the government to take them more seriously. A one-day, protest or demonstration is enough. It is not about how long the demonstration is but what you achieve out of it. Then, the government told the labour that the Port-Harcourt refinery would work.
Well, it should work, whether there was a protest or not. But any reason justification given to restore peace and tranquillity to allow the economy to work and to allow the people to cope I am okay with it. I would rather have no protest but robust engagement on policy issues. It is not only the Labour. I am also engaging them publicly. When they initiate a policy, I engage them. I am not going to them and I let them know that I don’t agree with some of the things they are doing.
It is not in anyone’s interest to have a volatile situation. So, labour should be careful not to be seen to be too partisan and to overplay their hands. Everyone behaved maturely at the meeting, and I hope that labour will focus more on productivity and getting more of their members who are in public services to make things work for the public.
It is actually their members who are in the refineries. They are the ones working there even when the refineries were not working. It’s their members that are in charge of subsidy payments. Labour is very strong in the country. If labour becomes the moral force in the country, then it is good for the country. They can be partners with the government. There is nothing to be ashamed of. If I had been elected as President, I would have been a partner to the labour unions and to the workforce because the president’s policies are not going to be implemented by the president himself.
They will be implemented through the Nigeria public service and the members are members of NLC and TUC. So, I don’t want us to think they are supposed to be rivals. Sometimes, both of them can agree, and they can be wrong. The public can even intervene if, for example, they think they can increase the minimum wage to an unsustainable level where the government may not be able to pay it later and become an industrial problem or even lead to inflation.
We can speak and say there are other ways you can improve workers’ welfare without a nominal increase in salary. So there are areas where they can disagree and work it out, that is not sustainable such that the government may not be able to pay. The government itself is an agent of the public. If you damage the economy, you are not damaging Tinubu’s economy. You are damaging the economy of the whole country. If the economy works, it’s not going to work for the president alone, it works for everybody.
Some think the protest was just a gimmick, as evident in the last protest, where only a handful of them participated. This, some say is, because there is a disconnect between them and the public, unlike yester years.
The labour unions represent their members. It is not everybody in the public that is a member of the labour union and it is not every member of labour unions that would agree with the position of the labour leadership and it is not everyone who agrees with their perspective or point will agree with the method of enforcing it.
The important thing about the protest is drawing the attention of the authorities. The labour did well yesterday with their protest. Moderation is good. They played their role, and they didn’t overdo it. And if the government is sincere about what they said they would do, that will take the country even further, it doesn’t mean it will solve all the problems because they are micro-economic in nature and they need time and a basket of policies to come together for us to get to where we are going.
Unlike before, the labour had direct contact with President Tinubu regarding the protest, would you say it is positive for the country, what trust do you think the people should give on to the government and labour?
Every government has its own method or style of reaching or relegating stakeholders. Some might be doing it in front of the TV. Some might be doing it at the highest level or middle level. Some do continuous engagement. You can not govern in a democratic space without engaging stakeholders without getting feedback. What the government has done is one way to do it. That’s the Tinubu style.
You know the man, Tinubu, with due respect, came from the city, he didn’t come from the barracks. So, it is part of the left movement, but he has moved right now in terms of policies. He used to be a social democrat. They used to be the NADECO. They used to be the people behind the people to protest. He has a constituency familiarity.
But we should not assume that labour is the mediator between the government and the people. That is not correct. Labour is a mediator between its members. They are going to the presidential villa in Abuja to talk about the welfare of their own members, and there are some areas where the interest of the labour and the public might coincide.
For example, the average motorist would want a cheaper cost, of fuel. So if labour is discussing cheaper fuel, the public will be happy. If labour is discussing higher minimum wage for its members, that’s not in the interest of the public. That is the interest of their own members only. Government policies will have consequences. Some intended and some unintended.
Some believe we wouldn’t be where we are presently if the president had thought through very well his pronouncement in his inaugural speech. What would you have done differently if it were you as president?
The president had the authority to do what he was doing because he told the public that when they elect him as president on day one, I would remove subsidy. There is nothing anybody can do. I would rather not be in that office than let it last one more day. He also said you can protest as long as you want. I will remove it.
And the people said go ahead and do so because the majority of the votes went to him. He had more votes than I had. So whatever the merits of my argument, I can’t raise it now because the public has voted for him to go and remove the subsidy. He has kept to his word.
He never said it was not going to be difficult. That should be very clear. I don’t want to over-politicise it. The time I would want to reopen this would be three years from now when we are going back to contest then I hope and pray that the country will be far better than it is now and I hope the president succeeds in whatever he is trying to do because his success is good for the country.
But whatever shortcomings they may have had at that time we go back to the public and review and say four years ago all of us came before you and we said we are going to proffer different solutions to these problems. You gave your mandate to the APC and President Bola Tinubu. Are you happier now? While they have the mandate now, we should allow them to implement the programme because sometimes something may be difficult at the beginning.
You said Nigerians voted for Tinubu even with all he said he would do during the campaign. Are you saying they got what they bargained for?
That’s democracy for you. That is why you have to be 18 years old before you can go and vote. It’s an adult decision. If you decide to take a particular road, whatever traffic you meet on the road, it is your choice because you were given different roads you could have taken. It is too early to cry.
Because there are more difficult decisions the government would have to take, having taken this part of neoliberal economic policies, there are many choices they have to make along the way. Not all those choices will make the people happy but people should bear in mind, it is a social contract they have signed with the government and if they face any difficulties along the way, they can bring it to the attention of the government but they should not assume that they have no role to play in it. That’s democracy. That is how we learn.
Going by the pronouncement of President Tinubu that the Port Harcourt refinery will be running by December and the Dangote refinery scheduled this month, would this bring down the price of fuel?
Dangote Refinery is a private entity. Although NNPC has a minor stake in it, it is a private company. They might have allowed former President Buhari the honour to commission it, but it didn’t mean it was ready. They just wanted him to have that sense of achievement that the refinery took place during his time. I can tell you that I don’t see that refinery producing anything this year, maybe towards the end of early next year, but before it can fully become operational, it will be 2025.
The other refineries, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, and Warri refineries have been trying to work out their readiness. I think we should try and get them to work but they will need not less than 2 years before they can work though the president told the labour that it will be operational by December, that’s merely aspirational and I think it is good for the president to have that aspiration and to mandate whichever minister he appoints to facilitate it and make it a top priority.
But all of that put together would still not reduce the price of petrol on the streets significantly. What the government is doing is that they are going out of the price guarantees by saying that whatever the market offers, that’s what you will buy the same way for other products. So all those calming down talks are just a way of calming people down. So there is no longer price control. What happens now is that we are merging with the international market in terms of the pricing of petroleum products. Even if we produce locally, the only way we can reduce the cost here is if the logistics is easier even though other costs may also increase. So there is no time when the price of petrol is guaranteed.
You said the coming on board of all the refineries will still not bring down the price of petroleum products, but government officials keep on telling us that it will. Can we say that they are deceiving Nigerians?
Government officials are not God because many of them are not properly trained in the area where they are manning. Sometimes it is just an innocent error. Or negligent error. They don’t know it.
There are critical areas in the polity that need urgent attention that you need capable people to handle. Is there anyone you have identified that can help Tinubu?
Yes. I can have them in my mind. But the nature of the presidency is this. You don’t get to tell your opponent who to appoint because he knows what he is looking for. So, please let him lay his bed himself, and I think he is beginning to lay the bed slowly. The president is a politician who doesn’t want to have a political crisis because in the ranking of problems for politicians when they are in office, political crisis, governance crisis, security crisis and economic crisis, the one they feel the most is the political crisis. But when the work starts, Nigerians wouldn’t care whether he used this or that because the economy is getting better, security is getting better, inflation is coming down, and people are getting jobs.
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