Comrade Joe Ajaero is the president of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). In this interview, he speaks on issues affecting workers in Nigeria, the Labour Party saga and the position of the congress on the issue. REGINA OTOKPA writes
How would you describe the mood of workers as they mark the 2025 workers day?
Hunger! We are hungry. The minimum wage cannot buy a bag of rice. If you are sincere and you go to work every day, 20 days in a month, your salary is gone on transportation. It is the issue of the way the minimum wage was implemented.
The consequential adjustment was implemented in breach, of course, and it’s better you understand this. At the national level; when we signed the N70,000 agreement as minimum wage, we had it at the back of our mind that N70,000 is for somebody on level 1 step 1 and there are about 15 steps on level 1.
As we talk today; If the incremental step is N2,000, at step 15, a person would have had additional M30,000 to N70,000 on level 1. Level 2 has about 14 steps, almost the same amount. Level 3 and 4l would have had about N60,000 or N80,000 to the M70,000 to the person on level 4 step 1 and if you add that, the person should have been receiving either N130,000 or N140,000 but most states, and I challenge them, will tell you that there is no person that received less than N70,000.
Now, the least paid in the state sis on level 4 and they started implementation from level 4. That is the worst thing that can happen to a worker. That amounts to wickedness. If you are employed into public service with school leaving certificate you earn level 4 and from what we negotiated, you should be earning close to one-third or one-fifth but that’s not the issue.
Those states are insisting that the least paid in their state is N70,000 and that least paid is someone on level 4. That wasn’t our agreement and that’s what we call the consequential adjustment even ay the federal level. Some states added N5,000 to worker’s salaries. So as long as you are earning more than N70,000, if your salary is N80,000, they give you N5,000.
What does that mean? That’s the issue that we’re battling with. We have been pushing ourselves and our colleagues in the states or in the private sector to see whether anything could be done but if you follow it very well, N70,000 couldn’t have been a bad idea because nobody is on N70,000 but in the implementation.
I’ve signed and left, I will not go from company to company, state to state to say you must do this, you must do that. Ordinarily, the least paid that is on maybe level 4, maybe the clerk or the messenger, should have been on at least N150,000 because nobody in the public service today is on level 1 step 1.
President Bola Tinubu came on board with the Renewed Hope Agenda mantra. Two years down the line will you say he has renewed the hope of workers?
There is a general feeling by Nigerians on how things are going. Even if you pay workers N1 million today, it will not make any meaning because of inflation.
Most of the people in government are beneficiaries of the sufferings of some of us, who protested against the military’s stay in office, annulment of June 12 and all that
The President has been able to introduce a new minimum wage of N70,000, and he worked with us to that extent. To his credit, the organised private sector, even the Federal Government and state governments stopped at N62,000 and we had to take the battle to the President. It was there that we got up to N70,000.
So, I will say that renewed hope is we have moved from N30,000 to N70,000 which is about 110 percent increase but to what extent is that taking care of the worker?
That’s the issue. There are some other policies that seem to undermine even what Mr. President did and unfortunately, those policies are wholly in-house. When you allow the flotation of the currency and you remove subsidy on virtually everything, then N70,000 will not bring any hope to the worker.
That’s the situation we have found ourselves. Because the economic planners have failed to see this in that regard, that if you allow the Naira to float, you saw it move from N700 to almost N1,500, which is about almost 100 percent and you allow the fuel that we were buying at about N200 or less than N200 to jump to as high as N800, N900 and in some places, N1,000 per litre.
How has that affected Nigerian workers?
It is difficult for a worker that has a car to fill his tank in a week for N70,000, it is difficult for you to buy token to recharge your meter for electricity in a month with less than N50, 000 to N70,000 If you have a family or you have one air condition or boiling ring. Those are the issues that are before us now.
Was President Tinubu able to record any achievement within the last two years?
I would say yes, to the extent of increasing the minimum wage. In fact, one of the achievements we had under him was the issue of reducing the frequency of negotiation. The negotiations used to be after every five years but under him, we pushed and we got it brought down to three years.
That means that this current minimum wage will be renegotiated in the next three years or thereabout. We are still waiting; in the next two years we should be able to renew it again. Unlike before when we used to wait for five years, this level of devaluation would have been too much. Those are the things he did for the workers and we agreed in the interim, to have what we called wage award.
That wage award was fought. When I say it was fought but it is equally unfortunate that in some areas, including the federal government, we are owing up to five months of federal workers and even some of the workers have retired since that time that were supposed to have benefited from the wage award, they are telling them they won’t be able to pay them at once.
That they will have to graduate it almost one year after the new minimum wage was signed into law. Those are some of the challenges we’re having.
There’s no amount or quantum of Naira we are going to pay as wages when inflation continues to grow and when the currency continues to lose its value, it doesn’t make sense. So, we have to relate it.
You have in different fora, tackled government over the negative consequences of its tax regime. What is its effect on Nigerian workers?
The tax regime seemed to be so injurious to the workforce. If you bring these three issues; high tax regime, inflation, devaluation of the currency, then what kind of wage can sustain a worker under this environment? I feel that the Federal Government should look at these things because they have a direct relationship, a relationship with the wage of the worker and if the worker’s wage doesn’t have value, you can’t talk of real productive economy because those producing, nobody can buy it. What they are also buying doesn’t have value.
However, we try to seek solace from the trade movement and we thought we had a smart one of resorting to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), which was a smart way and idea when the PMS price was increased. Instead of going on the streets to protest, we looked at it that we should go to the thinking box and we came out with a demand, let us have an alternative, let us think of a CNG.
How would CNG help serve as an alternative to PMS?
If the CNG revolution has come up, I bet you the price they were buying CNG would have been cheaper as we talk today, and the means of transportation would have been easier. If we reduce the price on means of transportation, goods and services including human beings will move freely, we wouldn’t have had this effect.
However, the same government that signed the CNG agreement that we thought was going to be a CNG revolution, has not provided the infrastructure for CNG buses.
Apart from one or two stations along the express, when heading towards the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, there are no other filling stations where you have CNG for people to refuel their tanks. Go and ask those using CNG, you will see that It will be cheaper for workers and the N70,000 minimum wage they are receiving would have been used more effectively.
In the same vein, we talked about electric vehicles; If you bring in electric vehicles and the CNG revolution in this environment that is known most especially for its Eco friendliness, the N70,000 we are talking about would assist workers very well because the problem of transportation will be solved.
Also, the high prices of goods and services will come down because the people that produce it from rural areas to the urban areas will not spend much in transporting them.
So, we are still hoping that the Federal Government will make the best use of this CNG technology and make sure that the infrastructure and CNG conversion kits are in more filling stations. We have also been appealing to the state governors to key into this.
They release some buses to us as NLC to ease transportation, but we can’t get stations to fill the buses. So, we are still using PMS. Not until this happens, we probably will say we have not started feeling the effects so much but I think measures have been put in place.
If you ask me, N70,000 is fine moving from N30,000 and then if we address the CNG, bring it in synergy with the N70,000, that would be good coupled with maybe the student loan for those that can’t pay their school fees. If that is properly implemented, mostly the children of the poor and workers can access loans.
Those are some of the factors one can look at and say the Renewed Hope Agenda is working. But I think the foundation has been laid and we’re afraid that real implementers of the policy will be involved in doing this.
What is the situation in Rivers and Edo states as far as NLC and May Day is concerned?
If there was no democracy, it probably would have gone the other way. It could even degenerate into other things if the workers come out in anger. Ever since the administrator came into office, he has even stopped the pension, gratuity and all that for the people there. So, we want to take control of what is happening in Rivers State outside the frenzy of May Day.
In Edo state, there are complications; the state governor or state government introduced an imposter, who is claiming to be chairman of NLC there and another one is claiming to be acting secretary of NLC and we have our chairman in Edo State whom they said was in support of the former governor and that he made political statements that the state will boil and all that under the former governor.
What they should have done was to complain to us and we’ll go to our statute book to see if he is found wanting. If he is, we discipline him according to our rules. You can’t ask an auditor even if that guy is incapacitated to take over.
We have our rules, we have our processes, you can’t remove any official without writing us and we invite you, investigate the people, set up a committee to listen to them on their issues. I can tell you that even the person in question, his union has suspended him and given a directive that this will not happen but it appears that the governor there is enjoying what is happening.
If you are talking about Labour Party without the trade unions, you are talking of empty shelves. Labour Party is all about the trade union movement
Maybe after May Day, we’ll see him, we’ll visit him and do eyeball to eyeball with him because that’s not how to behave. We set up a committee, the Ministry of Labour intervened, a joint committee of Ministry of Labour and NLC visited Edo and met with him. He promised that he was going to reach out to me for us to resolve the problem. When I couldn’t see him, I called the line they gave me but he was not picking.
They gave me another one that it was his WhatsApp line I called but he was not picking. I sent messages but up till now, no response, but he’s busy issuing threats.
If he continues that way, we’re going to relate with him directly. Secondly, he’s not properly implementing the issue of minimum wage. Edo has been a very important state for us.
When minimum wage was N18,000, Adams Oshiomhole started paying N25,000, he was ahead of other states. Godwin Obaseki came and when minimum wage was N30,000 he was paying N40,000, higher than any other state in the country. Obaseki even started paying N70,000 before negotiation from May, or even April 2024.
He started implementing and said if the Federal Government negotiates anything beyond this, we are going to pay. The governor we have there is not interested, he is trying to run May Day for us. Is May Day a governor’s day? Let him try this one and we’ll visit him because this is getting too much.
If we decide to cancel May Day tomorrow, we’ll do it anywhere, so why will he issue orders? He’s threatening that he’s going to revoke even the Certificate of Occupancy of union offices in Edo, he’s going to sack workers that didn’t come, that all permanent secretaries should come.
Is that what happens in a democracy? Well, I’m giving him all the latitude. He’s not our organiser to organise the unions for us. We don’t have any problem in Edo. We have our chairman and the NLC does not have any position like acting secretary.
That of Edo is different from the situation in Rivers State. Even in Rivers State, I think the sole administrator and others have asked for a meeting with the people and we have asked them to go and listen to him because we are open about the issue.
What informed the theme “Reclaiming the Civic Space in the Midst of Economic Hardship” for the 2025 May Day Celebration?
We had a pre-May Day lecture and it was on the theme. The civic space is being compressed. Even last two weeks or last week, the people came out to protest and the Police stopped them in Port Harcourt and other places.
These days, protesters are being fought; some people are not allowing Nigeria to freely protest. Even that of minimum wage or whatever, and hardship, we tried and they tried to disrupt it.
The then Director General of Department of State Services (DSS) said to me: ‘If you come out that day for a protest, you will have a date with history’ and I said, okay, I’ve taken note of your threat but I will come out. What that means is that forces are being used to compress the civic space and if you do that, that is the end to democracy. Even those sponsoring it will be the potential victims of it.
I can tell you that most of the people in government now are beneficiaries of the sufferings of some of us, who protested against the military’s stay in office, annulment of June 12 and all that. All of them there now, none of them was known, their names are not even known in their communities.
If the civic space was closed, none of them will be in the National Assembly, none will be a governor today. I think they’re having a momentary relief but it’s not going to last and it is the duty of the civil society, the labour movement, to make sure that we fight for the civic space to open.
If you watch, the level of student protests has been cut, caged and even the labour movements now, they are sponsoring all manner of voices.
If I finish talking with you now, one person may even call me an illiterate. Maybe, the person didn’t pass primary six. Those are the people being sponsored to work against popular views and the views reflecting the position of the people.
What they want now is that this May Day, we go there and clap for police and government and you know we are not helping them. If we don’t talk, they will not know how we are feeling. We will continue to talk.
Few weeks back, you issued a press statement threatening to take over the offices of the Labour Party nationwide. When is this action expected to take place?
If I update you on the mobilization, the essence of surprise, will not be there. Ordinarily, the day we issued the statement, we would have said we are taking it over tomorrow, but we asked every worker to be on standby and we are working on it.
We have written to Independent National Electoral Commission (NEC) on the day of our National Executive Council (NEC) meeting and done every other thing.
We’re going to take over the offices because that’s the way it is. Labour Party is an institutional party, either in Nigeria or anywhere, owned by the trade unions, anywhere in the world. So, it is a joke for anyone or any charlatan to say he is the owner of Labour Party. That’s not how to attack us.
Of course, you know that person, it won’t work. If you are talking about Labour Party without the trade unions, you are talking of empty shelves. Labour Party is all about the trade union movement and the issue of taking over is not an issue of maybe one office there or one office there, we decide where we operate.
The certificate of registration of the Labour Party is in this office and those threatening that they have gone to swear an affidavit, that amounts to deliberate perjury and they will face the full weight of the law.
