The portentous standoff in the negotiation for Nigeria’s new minimum wage emanates from the fact that labour’s demand is superfluous while the federal government’s offer borders on starving wage.
Labour went into the bargain with a seemingly unattainable demand for N615,000 per month as living wage for Nigerian workers.
Ironically, even the representatives of workers in the labour team knew precisely that with Nigeria’s abysmally low productivity, the economy cannot sustain N615,000 as minimum wage.
The only way that figure could probably fly under current circumstances is for the federal government to retrench 60 per cent of the outrageous 1.2 million in its workforce.
That would boil down to hacking down some 720,000 workers from the bloated federal civil service workforce.
Economists believe that the federal government needs just 40 per cent of its current workforce to do the job effectively. The rest are there to while away time and get paid at the end of the month for doing practically nothing.
In the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) where the monthly pay of the least paid worker is pretty close to what the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) demanded as living wage, the workforce is so bloated that the large compound housing the headquarters of the apex bank which is built on acres of land cannot accommodate staff cars. Some are compelled to park several poles away from the headquarters.
Before the belated retrenchment embarked upon by the current governor of CBN, hundreds of its workers had no place to sit and work for their bumper harvest at the end of each month.
The picture in ministries and paratatals of the federal government is even more absurd as people are just recruited based on who sent them to the head of the establishment rather than the availability of vacancies.
That explains why some federal workers stroll to the office by 12pm and close for the day by 2pm. Some show up for work twice in a whole week. That level of apathetic productivity cannot sustain NLC’s prodigious demand.
The NLC has a clear picture of the bloated workforce in the federal civil service when it demanded an unsustainable sum of N615,000 as minimum wage.
Ironically, it did not factor in the indisputable truth that for the economy to sustain such demand, the workforce has to be trimmed to manageable levels. Even the current demand for N250,000 borders on eccentricity.
The 36 state governments and 774 local governments employ a total of 1.3 million of Nigeria’s 76 million work force. The attitude of 80 per cent of the 1.3 million employees is even worse than that of the 1.2 million in the federal civil service.
Thousands collect their pays at the end of every month without doing anything for their employer. Their names were slipped into the pay roll by high velocity criminals who sneaked into the top echelon of the service of the state governments.
The states and local governments pay the salaries of thousands of ghost workers.
The NLC is aware of the existence of thousands of ghost workers in the pay roll of states and local governments but said nothing about how to weed them out to make the payment of a living wage for Nigerian workers feasible.
The NLC is equally aware of the fact that 15 of the 36 states of the federation have not implemented the N30,000 minimum wage signed into law in 2019.
It has not done anything to compel the errant state governments to obey the law. Ironically, it is pushing for an outrageous new minimum wage that would only lengthen the list of state governments that would disobey the law.
The truth is that Nigeria at its current productivity level cannot give its workers a living wage. Both the employers and employees are guilty of the low productivity in the economy.
The federal government has not succeeded in ending crude oil theft which is starving the foreign exchange market of essential hard currencies and consequently forcing the naira into a disorderly retreat in the market.
That factor is partially responsible for the double digit inflation depleting the purchasing power of the naira and pricing food items beyond the reach of the 140 million Nigerians toiling below poverty line.
The employees on their part do not put in their best in the service that fend for their living. In Europe and North America where workers get living wages, no worker takes a phone call while on duty. You may lose your job if you are caught.
The rule of the game is so strict that the worker gives the employer everything during the eight hours he is paid for. Until Nigerian workers develop such discipline, living wages would remain elusive.
The federal government on its part has not treated the minimum wage negotiation with the gravity it deserves. Government had grossly underestimated the ability of the NLC and TUC to call out workers on strike.
Since the emergence of the current leadership of the NLC the two attempts at nationwide strike were colossal failures. Government ironically based its assessment of NLC’s ability to organise strikes on the outcome of those failed strikes.
It did not consider the fact that with food inflation standing menacingly above 40 per cent, starving workers were sufficiently angry to obey the NLC and make the nationwide strike a colossal success.
That is why the strike crippled the economy in less than two days. If it had lasted five days it would have rocked the foundation of governance.
What the government has offered so far is starving wages. The current minimum wage of N30,000 was signed into law when food inflation was 20 per cent. Now it has doubled to 40 per cent.
The reality on ground put a tolerable minimum wage at anything from N100, 000.
State governors are against that figure because it would leave them with nothing to steal. They must be compelled to abandon their selfishness and stem starvation among workers.
