…Renews call for LG autonomy
From Obinna Odogwu, Awka
National President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Ambali Olatunji, has expressed sadness over the terrible state of the country’s economy, lamenting that Nigerians are now dying of hunger and extreme poverty.
Olatunji, who doubles as the National Treasurer of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), said that the economic policies of the present administration so far have been very bad.
The NULGE boss, who visited Anambra State recently to address the leadership crisis rocking the union in the state, had a chat with select journalists and Sunday Sun was there. Excerpts:
It’s not every day that the National President of an association, especially one as big as NULGE, visits its state branch. So, why are you in Anambra?
I am in Anambra to put an end to the illegality going on and to also return our union to the path of progress. For some time now, we have been watching an ugly trend going in Anambra whereby some illegal groups, dissidents are parading themselves as alternate leadership of our union without the approval or consent of the national leadership. Initially, we were relying on the court order granted to some of them by a competent court of jurisdiction, but that judgment has been appealed. And by that appeal, that judgement has been harmed. The only thing they can do as a member who is law abiding will have been to wait for the outcome of the appeal at the Federal Court of Appeal. But surprisingly they didn’t wait; they were so apprehensive and desperate and they started causing commotion and division among our members. So, we believe today we have to come here to address the statutory body which is the state executive council and also put the record straight. The national leadership frowns at that illegality going on presently and we have also contacted the government of Anambra State to let them know that it is only one leadership and one union that we know. The only registered union, NULGE, and we are the only ones registered by law and we are the only ones that have the certificate. So, no group or individual has the right to come and parade or seize the reign of leadership unconstitutionally or illegally. That’s why we are here. After addressing the state executive council, we are also meeting the government to reaffirm that we have only one leadership headed by Comrade Chikwelu Adigwe, as the state President of Anambra NULGE. That is the only President that we know. And because his tenure is about winding up, come November 29 the current tenure will wind up completely; and in line with our statute, the democratisation of our union, the transition is expected to hold within 90 days before the expiration of the tenure. So, we are commencing the process by giving a directive to the state Admin Council to commence process of branch elections which had been conducted and concluded on or before expiration of 21 days from today which means that the existing caretaker at all the local governments will expire on or before 21 days time which election will have been conducted and new executive will have been sworn in. After that, the process of state delegate conference can commence and we are also giving a directive that all contestants will be given the same opportunity as everybody. The form for the state delegate conference shall be free so that nobody will say that because we don’t have money, we will not do it. Even the branch election form shall be free. As of today, whoever wants to obtain form today, it is free. I am not saying as of yesterday but from today that I am here, all branch elections; all contestants that want to contest from today shall obtain the form free of charge. Number two, the ongoing process will have to be concluded because we only suspended the process; it was not aborted. So, on or before 21 days’ time, we will have completed the process of election and we will have inaugurated all the branch excos. And I have also given a directive that one returning officer shall be appointed to lead the other electoral officers to go and conduct branch elections simultaneously across all the local governments in Anambra State except the four local governments in the South that we are having issues of insecurity. Their elections shall be conducted here at the state capital where we have a fortified security network. Finally, NULGE cannot, but express our deep appreciation to the Government of Anambra State under our own experienced, cerebral governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, for the way he has managed our union and labour relations in this state. We are proud of him. I will continue to show our solidarity and support for him.
Beyond recognising and affirming the leadership of Chikwelu Adigwe as the state President of NULGE in Anambra, what plans do you have to appease the aggrieved members of the union and restore peace here?
The only way is that when ambition is involved and it is political, the way to go is to follow the constitutional process which is election. What we can do is that whoever is interested; because the law is clear. The only thing that can settle the Anambra issue is election; free and transparent electoral process. That’s why I have said from today, whoever is interested, even those people who are agitating, let them obtain form and go to the field. Let the will of the people be supreme because even now if you’re saying we should call them to talk, are we going to say that they should not contest or what? So, what we want is once we have a transparent process that is devoid of attack, devoid of manipulations, everyone will accept the outcome of the elections. The caretaker here has stayed too long. It is time to follow due process. I am a democrat. I believe that we should follow the law. So, whoever informs us of any infraction, we will attend to it immediately. We will address it. And once we have peace in NULGE, we will have peace in the labour movement; we will have peace in the union.
We understand that you have some cases pending at the law court. What are you going to do about them?
Any case in court, we should be careful. I don’t want to be pre-emptive of the outcome of the court process. But in our constitution there are other ways. Those people that are aggrieved, they have never informed the national secretariat. We are not aware. The procedure is that when you are aggrieved you apply to NEC formally and express your grievances. Then, NEC will set up a committee to listen to your grievances. That has not been done.
As the leader of NULGE, how best do you think the Federal Government should tackle the economic hardship in the country?
I want to appreciate you for that question. Labour is aggrieved about the way the economic policies of the present administration are being handled. We believe they’re putting the cart before the horse. Our belief is that President Bola Tinubu is a seasoned technocrat; he is from the private sector; he has been a governor; a two-time governor of Lagos State; he is the national leader of a ruling party, the biggest in Africa. We know that the government was under pressure by the Brentwood economic planners; the neoclassical minded people. The World Bank and other international finance institutions to put Nigeria under pressure to devalue the naira; to remove subsidy and also collapse the exchange rate; to adopt the mono exchange policy but the untold hardship on Nigerians has become a thing of concern to anybody. As of today, no worker will be able to feed normally. No worker can go to their place of work and come back safely. The slave wage you are being paid is grossly insufficient. Our recommendation to the government, right from 2020 was that it should fix the refinery. Nigeria has become a laughing stock in the committee of nations. Among the oil producing nations of the world, it is only Nigeria that cannot refine petroleum products within the country. We have four refineries under the former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, he came out openly and was boasting that by December 2022, Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries would become operational. Money was allocated to that. It was siphoned; misapplied and misappropriated. Nobody is asking questions. So, we are not saying that they cannot remove subsidy. What happened to the subsidy thieves? Must they go? Must you say ‘go and sin no more’? President Tinubu must come out openly to probe the subsidy thieves so that we will recoup trillions of naira that have been diverted by these people. That’s number one. We are also having modular refineries across the country, though established by some people and called illegal refineries. If the Federal Government cannot manage a refinery, an individual is able to construct a modular refinery, why can’t we leverage on that advantage by standardizing their operation, by licensing them and monitoring what they are doing. The advantages are enormous. It will create more employment opportunities for Nigerians; it will also strengthen our naira exchange rate to dollar and it will also increase our electricity generation. So, why are we not looking at that side? Why must we be destructive in nature? Every time you see them destroying modular refineries while you cannot do your own. That’s why Labour becomes suspicious that somebody somewhere is putting pressure on the government to collapse the oil market and turn it into a monopoly. And with the experience in Nigeria every monopolised market or product has ended up becoming more expensive and people will no longer be able to buy it. So, our recommendation is that the government refineries should be operational in Nigeria; modular refineries should be licensed and standardised so that individuals who are constructing them will be licensed so that they will continue to generate employment, increase our productivity and also improve our GDP. Number three, Nigeria is a gas nation, not even an oil nation. As far as 2020, we did a research which we submitted to the government; that instead of this incessant increment in the price of PMS, let us go the way of gas. Let us have Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) consuming vehicles in Nigeria and then, under the former governor of the Central Bank, we were aware that over N80 billion was released for this. It was not accounted for. Nothing was done. The interest of the government was ‘let us remove subsidy’ without providing alternatives. Let me also say that I was at NIPCO recently to do research because I am the palliatives committee chairman of the NLC negotiating with the government. At NIPCO, we realised that conversion of a vehicle from PMS to gas will cost about N340,000 and we realised that an average civil servant will not be able to pay for that. What the government is doing is commendable but it is not enough. Buying CNG-powered buses is not enough. What of the individuals that have cars in Nigeria? What the government is supposed to do is to create a CNG conversion centre like we have in Benin where we did the pilot survey. And that is virtually unaffordable to Nigerians because to do a CNG conversion centre will take about N200 million on average. What the government is supposed to do is to partner with IMB like the Labour is doing presently; create 10 conversion centres in each state at the rate of N200 million; that is about N2 billion times 37. So, we need about N500 billion if we are serious to address the issue of this conversion; minimum of 10 conversation centres in each state. CNG is very cheap. As at the time we did the survey, gas per litre will go for about N80. As of today it’s not even up to N150. So, why are we not exploring that opportunity? Why must we force Nigerians to continue to buy PMS at a very high rate? Number four, we believe that the time for a new minimum wage is now. When fuel was sold at N180 we were being paid N30,000 minimum wage, a slave wage. As at today, NULGE has led the campaign that minimum wage should be reviewed upwardly to the tune of 300 per cent. Not only that, local government workers deserve a peculiar allowance for working in very hard terrains that are prone to risk, prone to terrorism, kidnapping and attack. Number five, Labour is of the opinion that the established social register that was generated devoid of political sentiment has integrity, is durable. The lame excuse by the forum of governors saying that it has no integrity is an excuse to manipulate the process. I participated in how to generate that social register; the procedure, the standard adopted is of world class standard. Why the politicians were not happy was that the procedure did not allow political manipulation. You are saying that it has no integrity and you want to implement a social protection agenda; social inclusion. How will you do it when you don’t even have the baseline data? It shows you are rigmaroling. So, we should return to that social register. We can update it; we can use it. But if you don’t do that, what we will be having now is a party members’ register and that is not a social register that can address what we need. For us in Labour, we believe that palliative is relative. Are we teaching people to fish or we are giving them fish? What we need is empowerment through the Local Government. Let the Department of Social Development and Community in Local Government that has the vocational acquisition centre be energised to carry out vocational skill acquisition for people and empowerment. A woman selling fried plantain may not need up to N20,000 to establish. What you need to do is to empower her with that money; not give her peanuts to go and eat. What is N8,000? How long can that go? Finally, we must have a social net to capture the vulnerable in Nigeria: the aged, the challenged – mental and physical challenge – and the retiree. Those vulnerable, we must have a professional plan for social policy and social legislation to take care of them. We must get it right.
NULGE has been at the forefront for the conduct of local government elections in Nigeria, but the governors in some states seem to be having their ways by using caretaker committees and this affects the local government administration. How far has NULGE gone in this push so far?
Any governor that uses caretaker or overseer like Governor el-Rufai did in Kaduna, appointing overseer as we are in a church for local government, any governor that appoints a sole administrator is doing that illegally, unconstitutionally and against the judgement of the Supreme Court that outlawed use of political cronies to seize leadership at the local government level. Section 7.1 says a system of democratically elected local government is hereby guaranteed. Anybody that does anything contrary to it, is doing that at his own peril. However, we know that why they are doing this is to create room for pilfering, outright stealing, misapplication and misappropriation of local government funds. Appointment of political cronies to head the local government gives room for corruption and fraud. That is why Nigerians must resist it. NULGE led the clamour, agitation to actualise local government autonomy. That is the best thing that would have happened to Nigeria. Unfortunately, because of the passive nature of Nigerians, we were left to continue to do that with the press. In other climes, it was not supposed to even be the struggle of NULGE. It is the fundamental right of the Nigerian people to enjoy a strong vibrant democratised local government system. That is why there is confusion in the country. That is why there is hopelessness. That is why there is poverty. That is why there is an infrastructural gap. Once we have that sub-national government functional at that level, little will be the relevance of state and federal governments because that’s where people reside. But there has been systematic destruction and rape of the local government system in Nigeria over a period of time. And all of us must come out together to say no to this. Most of us cannot go to our villages. We are upset that in four local governments, we can’t conduct elections there. If we had had a vibrant local government system working, operational in that four local governments, if the local government had been financially independent, had been administratively independent, politically independent, that problem will not be there. You want to stem insecurity in Nigeria? You want to create employment in Nigeria? You want to carry out women empowerment? You want to carry out youth inclusiveness and empowerment? You want stability in Nigeria? Local Government autonomy is the way to go.