By Benson Upah
The federal government’s attitude and response to the on-going national minimum wage negotiation as presented by Bayo Onanuga, the Presidential spokesperson, are both callous, insensitive and misguided. Onanuga describes Labour’s demand as “unserious, unrealistic [and]… outlandish”, adding,
“I don’t foresee any government either the federal, state or local government council spending spending all its money just to pay workers”, ( _Vanguard_ , 27/05/2024).
It is important to remind the government that the refusal of some states to comply with the National Minimum Wage Act of 2019 was not due to lack of resources but rather it was as a result of a deficit of leadership or or worse still, unwillingness to prioritise workers’ welfare. Numerous states possessed the needed financial capability to meet these obligations but chose to allocate funds elsewhere, usually in less productive and highly questionable ventures, yet in not a few states, workers wages drive the economy. In some instances, these resources were guzzled up in a looting spree leaving behind debts, pain, penury and fury. It is therefore important for Mr Onanuga to understand that payment of the national minimum wage is not dependent on surplus resources but a commitment to the people and obedience to a national law.
Nigerians have not forgotten that the governments of President Muhammadu Buhari made available funds to these states at various times to enable them offset arrears of salaries and pensions as well as sustain continuous payment of same but these heartless governors diverted the funds or misapplied them. Does Mr Onanuga need another proof that these governors were executive law breakers or were insensately cruel? Happily, they were a negligible minority. Nonetheless, they are Mr Onanuga’s example.
Equally of concern is Onanuga’s disgusting language, infernally contemptuous of workers, whom he clearly sees as mules or chattel. Of civil servants this is what Onanuga said:
“We have bloated civil service at all levels. Government is keeping them as a social service, because it doesn’t have other jobs for them.
“The last time someone gave the census of the federal civil servants, they are said to be about 50,000. I am not talking about the police, army or those employed by some agencies. I am talking about the hardcore civil servants.
“If you visit the Federal Secretariat, you will see them milling round.
“You do not expect much productivity from them. Yet these are people Ajaero wants the Federal Government to pay N615,000.
“At the moment, what government is spending on recurrent expenditure, is too high”
We are at a loss from where this arrogance is coming. Onanuga has been a ‘hand’ all his life. Even if he were some gentry with an estate that stretches from the lagoon to the desert, it is time he knew that the lab ourer deserves their wages and that dignity of labour is their inalienable right. The way he carries on with his needless altercation, you would wonder how helpful he is to his principals. The job of a spokesperson is to explain or market their principal’s policies and not to manufacture enemies for them. But Onanuga, in spite of his age, keeps missing this all-important rule.
He appears so incapable of separating the people and indeed Nigerian workers from his perception of political opponents whom he has been programmed to attack. If it were not so, how could he on earth describe workers from whose taxes he gets paid for wondering around in such derogatory language.
The claim by Onanuga that “…all the wage increases in the past … ended up creating more frustration to the workers” makes necessary psychological evaluation as a precondition for appointing people into public offices. No one needs a degree to know that the removal of fuel subsidy and the unprecedented devaluation of the Naira (at N1,600 to the Dollar), the raising of energy tariff by 250% which more than quadrupled the cost of living, trending inflation at 33.7%, food inflation at 40% that workers are grappling with massive social dislocation, demobilisation and disorientation, barely able to survive. Onanuga lives off the people for practically doing nothing, so he does not know or he pretends not to know what they are going through, but then Achebe warns that those whose palm kernels have been broken for them by benevolent gods should not forget to be humble.
Of course, we do recignise that Mr. Onanuga’s remarks betray an embarrassing naivety or a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of a national minimum wage whose logic is anchored on the need to protect the vulnerable as it sets a national benchmark below which no employer in the law is allowed to pay. It is not synonymous with the pay structures of the states which each state is allowed to pay.
Why is no one complaining about the wages of political office holders that are so humunguous and cut across the states irrespective of the economic status of these states?
Although this is not about general wages, a couple of years ago when public sector wages were reviewed, it was not more than 45% whereas in political sector, it was over 400%. Recently the same wages were reviewed by 143 per cent.
In his self-righteous indignation, Mr Onanuga failed to notice government’s bogus exco, leakages and wastages and other brazen acts of corruption.
We wish Mr Onanuga good luck.
*Benson Upah*
Head of Information and Public Affairs