By Drew Povey
BOTH the President and the Deputy General Secretary of the NLC provided May Day speeches that showed a distinct lack of leadership. Wabba, the NLC president concentrated on providing advice on the need for Nigeria to move away from the dependence on oil. Ismail Bello, the Deputy General Secretary, included a video of the chief executive of Access Bank explaining the need for job cuts of 75% and pay cuts of 40%. In neither case did they appear to think that as trade union leaders they should be demanding improvements for their members and then using their collective strength to win these demands.
As Karl Marx said, people make history but not in circumstances of their own choosing. The NLC is one of the largest trade union federations in sub Saharan Africa. As such, it has the potential to make history. The current circumstances in which we find ourselves are extraordinarily challenging. However, potentially powerful groups like the NLC are able to change the way society develops after the end of the current pandemic. They can either accept the way things were or they can challenge the prevailing ideas and start a movement towards a fairer and more democratic society.
We need a completely different approach by the NLC leadership. We need a commitment from them to use the potential power of its millions of members to force a change in the way that society is organised.
The NLC president appears to believe that there is no alternative to the current capitalist system, its inherent poverty and inequality. As a result, he appears to adopt a nationalist position and all that he can hope for is that the Nigerian economy develops and that some of the extra wealth trickles down to the poor majority. This is despite the fact that, especially over the last three or four decades, the wealth that labour creates has gushed up to the tiny minority of corrupt leaders. They have succeeded in enriching themselves beyond their wildest dreams and so they don’t really need advice from the NLC or anybody else.
Ismail Bello called for social dialogue with those like the chief executive of Access Bank. This he hopes will result in the provision of social protection for all. The complete failure to provide palliatives for the majority to enable them to survive the current lockdowns suggests that it will take more than social dialogue to change the way our society is run.
We need a completely different approach by the NLC leadership. We need a commitment from them to use the potential power of its millions of members to force a change in the way that society is organised.
During the lockdowns we need food, safe water and decent accommodation for everyone. If we can win that demand now, then the potential power of the NLC’s collective membership can be used to continue to win this demand once the pandemic is over.
The problem is not with the lack of wealth in society! Look across the centre of Abuja or any state capital and you can see there is wealth in abundance. There is more than enough for the needs of the many, but not enough for the greed of the few.
The NLC has repeatedly shown the power of general strikes since the end of the military era. Some of these strikes successfully won most of their demands. In January 2012, there was what amounted to almost the national insurrection. It is not the lack of power that is the problem; it is the lack of confidence and the lack of proper leadership.
We all need to put pressure on the NLC and TUC and to demand that they lead appropriate action. Another world is possible but only if we use the power and opportunities that are available.
Povey writes from Abuja and could be reached via email: drewpovey@btinternet.com,
