The General Secretary of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions (NASU), Peters Adeyemi, in this interview with COLLINS OLAYINKA, insists that workers are the greatest victims of poor policies such as the removal of fuel subsidy, liberalisation of the naira amid stagnation of wages among others.

May Day has come and gone, but one issue that dominated the celebration was minimum wage. As a veteran and someone who has been deeply involved in minimum wage issues in the past 15 years, what is your assessment?
I think that it is unfortunate that the government was not able to make a pronouncement on the amount to be paid as minimum wage during the worker’s day. Such an announcement would have made the occasion more glamorous and I think it would have impacted the lives of the Nigerian workers.

So, I see that the inability of the president and his government to conclude the tripartite negotiation and come out with a figure that probably they would have announced on May Day and pushed to the National Assembly for legislation is unfortunate. I don’t see it as a progressive move. Come to think of a new minimum wage, the government then announced salary increments in some sectors. The wage increase was not based on any known parameters. What were the factors that were used in determining the 25 per cent and 35 per cent increases?
So, I think it is very dishonest on the part of the government to abandon the negotiation on the minimum wage.
It is also very dishonest on the part of the government to abandon the negotiation for a new minimum wage.

So, for me, I think it is very dishonest on the part of the government to abandon the negotiation on the minimum wage. I think it is very dishonest on the part of the government to abandon the negotiation on the minimum wage. It was not done in good spirit. I think the government needs to explain why it is playing pranks with the issue of the minimum wage. The 25 and 35 per cent increases announced on the eve of May Day were a way of avoiding collective bargaining machinery.
The government does not want to discuss with unions, and they get unions to make input into the level, and quantum of percentage of the increase that is desirable. It is very unfortunate for us because, in the education sector, the issue of a 25 per cent increase in workers, universities, inter-university centres, and colleges of education was concluded in 2022.
So, if 25 per cent to 35 per cent was irrelevant in the year 2022, when there was no removal of subsidy and when the bastardisation of the Naira has not reached this level, then that percentage cannot be reasonable in the year 2024 when the economy has virtually collapsed. The increases do not make workers happy because they know that a load of Naira is unable to buy anything reasonable. If 25 and 35 per cent that were approved in 2022 were inappropriate, then you must be talking of over 100, 200 per cent increases in 2024 because virtually the prices of every commodity have gone by more than 400 per cent between 2022 and now. These increases are very dangerous. Labour must not keep quiet over this matter because these increases that they are announcing now, show that they are shutting the door of negotiation. The government cannot award 25 and 35 per cent now and then increase the minimum wage in the next few months.
It is an attempt to strangulate or prevent the labour movement from doing what is supposed to be its normal activity. The government ambushed the labour movement and I think that is not good for us. I hope the nationwide both the NLC and TUC are planning at the end of this month if the minimum wage law is not ready will be a reality.

You painted a picture that portrays the government as not responsive enough to workers’ welfare. But there has been less industrial action since this government came to power almost one year ago. Does this not show that the labour movement is happy?
I do not agree that the labour movement is happy. We, in the last couple of years that have served in the labour movement, in various capacities, have never had the negative impact of government policies on Nigerian workers like we are going through right now. This government came and removed subsidies. A litre of petrol, as at the time this government came, was less than N200 per litre. With that pronouncement of May 29, 2023, the price of petrol went as high as N600 per litre. Thereafter, it moved even higher.
So, you find that, that was a clear disruption to the economic life of every Nigerian worker. PMS impacts directly or indirectly on the life of every average Nigerian worker. The moment the price of PMS goes up, the cost of transportation automatically moves up by more than 100 per cent.
Meanwhile, the government has not increased salaries. So, right from the beginning of this administration, their policies have been very negative as far as Nigerian workers are concerned. Then, this same government went ahead to harmonise the exchange rate which resulted in Naira exchanging for N1,900 to the dollar. When this government took over, the exchange rate was not up to N700. So, when this government took over, just last year, we saw a situation where the currency was grossly devalued to the point that it went from $1 to 1,900. The meaning of that is that you have also bastardised the value of the salaries that workers are earning, yet you have not added anything to it. The third leg of the calamity is that this government then went and introduced palliative that was so uncoordinated. Palliative in itself had even created more crisis for Nigerian workers. Ask me how?
Rather than pay workers directly, the government then put food items into the hands of politicians to distribute.
Every bit of foodstuff that is available, politicians went and bought them off. The implication of that is that even the N35,000 that you now pay directly into the pocket of those that the government is paying to, they cannot find any commodity to buy. Where they found food to buy, the cost had gone up.
There are a whole lot of economic policies of this government that appear not to have been well thought out properly. On May Day, Labour requested demanded that wages should be to inflation. Labour also said minimum wage law should be reviewed every two years.

Are these two requests achievable?
I think that the idea of reviewing the minimum wage every two years or three years is not sensible.
Ideally, minimum wage ought to be something that automatically determines itself based on the rate of inflation. You don’t need to wait for two, or three years.
Because if you wait, you are likely to be in serious trouble. That is what we are confronted with now. One of the things that has not helped us is that the government will wait for five or six years before they consider a review of minimum wage.
Salaries ought to be reviewed, even if possible, every year, based on the rate of inflation and other factors. But I know that is impossible. So, the government, this present government, is not likely to respond to that on a platter of gold. But it is something that can ameliorate substantially, the crisis we find ourselves in.
But again, you also must consider the fact that, even in determining the fundamentals for determining the quantum of money that should be paid to the Nigerian workers as minimum wage, you have to also put into consideration the fact that even the last minimum wage is not paid by many state governments. While it makes sense to float the minimum wage based on the inflationary trend, even with the value of the Naira and other dynamics within the system, there will be unwilling state governments that will not implement the law.

Whatever figure is eventually agreed upon will still be problematic because Nigeria does not have a law that can compel state governments to implement the wage law.
Right now, I had expected that because of the humongous money that state governments are getting as a result of the removal of the subsidy, workers’ salaries would increase at the state level without waiting for a review of the minimum wage law. But we know that workers’ welfare is not a priority for some of the governors. For me, I think the problem is not about the quantum of the money or the variables in determining the quantum of the minimum wage.
The elephant in the room is how to get a minimum wage that will be paid both by the federal, state and the private sector across the board. I think that is the key issue. The percentage of federal workers is very insignificant to the state and private sector employees.

You are saying that it is important for labour to negotiate a minimum wage that is based on the ability to pay across the board?
No. I am not talking about ability. I am talking about a minimum wage law that is enforceable. These are two different things. The governors are always represented on the tripartite for the negotiation of minimum wage. In most cases, they are the ones that water down labour demands. So, if they were represented on the committee and were even responsible for low wages, why wouldn’t they implement the law? There are state governors that are still not paying N30,00 minimum wage even after getting humongous amounts from the FAAC allocation that runs into billions. The governors need to bring their books to the committee so that all of us can see how they spend these huge allocations. Therefore, the ability to pay is there. It is the unwillingness to pay and wrong priorities that are responsible for the mess we are in.

I expect the ruling party to intervene in this matter because they have the majority as governors, they also have a majority in the two chambers of the National Assembly. Why can’t the party prevail on its members to prioritise payment of minimum wage? The second step will be to ensure that whatever amount is negotiated as minimum wage is paid.
Let me address the issue of N615,000. The amount is the demand made by labour. We now expect the government to make a counteroffer. Negotiations will then begin when we have the two offers. Labour has put out its statistics on how it arrived at the N615,000 figure. It is left for the government to bring its statistics on the amount it can pay. The organised private sector will also bring its figures and the tripartite group can then engage. The product of the engagements is what will lead to a new minimum wage. So, if the process is this smooth among the tripartite group, why won’t be the implementation of the law smooth?

The Minister of Education has said the government may set 18 years as the entry age for the university. What are your views on this proposition?
As a father and judging by all the criminalities that are happening in our society, we have gone far beyond when any immature person should go to university.
An immature mind can be recruited into different types of criminality. Even when mature people are actively involved in criminal activities, it is easier to recruit those who do not have minds of their own. Ages below 18 have not reached the level of maturity. Universities are not meant for kindergarten students. University education is meant for mature minds. For the first time, I am seeing a policy that is supportable made by the government. I think all the relevant stakeholders should support this idea.