By Salihu Moh. Lukman
The 11th Quadrennial Delegates’
Conference of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), scheduled for February 9th
and 10th ended inconclusively with ugly disruption of voting process
to produce new leadership for the Congress early in the morning of Thursday,
February 12, 2015.
The issues that led to the disruption of the voting process
were allegations of irregularities fuelling suspicion of rigging by one of the
Candidates.
Claims of use of ballot papers that appear different from approved
ones were also raised. Be that as it may, violent eruption of delegates
resulting in destruction of ballot boxes and scattered ballot papers is
indefensible, disgraceful and unacceptable.
Experiences in the Past
Perhaps, it may be argued that this is not
the first time NLC is going through leadership crisis during its delegates’
conference. In 1982, in Kano, Comrade David Ojeli from the Nigeria Civil
Service Union (NCSU) led a splinter group of unionists with the backing of the
2nd Republic National Party ofNigeria (NPN) federal government of
Alh. Shehu Shagari to challenge the emergence of Alh. Ali Chiroma of the
Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria (MHWUN) as successor to Alh. Hassan
Sunmonu of the Civil Service Technical Workers Union of Nigeria (CSTWUN).
Comrade Ojeli's challenge was democratically defeated and all threats,
including attempts to mobilize a walkout, were averted by superior internally
organized response of the Sunmonu-cum-Chiroma leadership.
The second time was the 1988 Benin Conference
of the NLC, which saw Comrade Takai Shamang of the National Union of
Electricity Employees (NUEE), with the support of the Babangida administration,
challenging the Comrade Ali Chiroma leadership, resulting in parallel
conferences, allegedly producing both Comrades Chiroma and Shamang as
Presidents of NLC.
The result is therefore a contrived leadership crisis that
justified the direct intervention of government in the internal administration
of NLC with the appointment of Mr. Michael Ogunkoya as NLC Sole Administrator.
That intervention arm-twist union leaders to negotiate the emergence of Comrade
Pascal Bafyau (of blessed memory) who came from the Nigeria Union of Railwaymen
(NUR) as NLC President.
The third instance was the 1994 dissolution
of the Comrade Pascal Bafyau leadership along with those of National Union of
Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff
Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) by the Abacha administration on account of
their roles against the 1993 annulment of the June 12, 1993 election.
These
unions remained under government appointed Sole Administrators up to 1998 when
Gen. Abacha died. With the emergence ofGen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, and the
termination of official policy of internal interference in the administration
of unions by federal government, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of the National Union
of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers (NUTGTWN) emerged as elected
President of Congress in January 1999 following a contested election.
2015 NLC Conference
Perhaps like in 1999 and 2003, contests for
leadership during the NLC in 2007 and 2011 did not lead to internal crisis.
Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) succeeded Comrade
Adams smoothly largely on account of capacity of structures to negotiate
agreements and regulate the conduct of members. Why was the NLC leadership
unable to deplore its internal capacity in 2015?
What is very clear in the narrative of Nigerian
union leadership contestation is that the hands of government in engineering
crisis is visible and perhaps the major catalyst. Is the federal government
also engineering the current NLC crisis? It will be very difficult to prove, at
least not as visible as the 1982 and 1988 cases. If there is the hand of
government in the crisis, it may have been overshadowed by other profound
issues that must have eroded the integrity quotient that used to serve as the
source of moral authority of the NLC.
Partly because of poor ethical standards in
the union movement, government interests and support for contestants may have
been seen as normal and in some cases even a source of strength. This may
justify stories flying around that one of the candidates for one of the offices
openly promote himself based on the credential that he come from the same place
with Dame Patience Jonathan, the First Lady of the Federal Republic. Another is
alleged to have won the support of the Secretary to the Government of the
Federation (SGF) and Minister of Power on account of coming from the same
tribe.
True or false, internal organ deliberations
would have thrown up these issues, absolve or confirm those being accused.
These are now left to speculations and at best ignored by those accused.
Therefore, like the story of Nigeria, NLC gradually, systemically and
systematically come to a standstill through years of value-stripping actions
and perhaps deliberate subversion. Value-stripping actions on accounts of union
leaders’ inability to conduct their affairs selflessly through teamwork, etc.
Capacity of union leaders to internalize these values and in the process
produce inspiring results that translate into union - management/government
agreements manifesting in higher wages, enhanced benefits and good working
conditions were factors that have elevated union leaders to national reckoning.
The emergence of Michael Imoudu, Wahab Goodluck, , Ali Chiroma and
Adams Oshiomhole of recent are typical examples.
The question of what went wrong during the
2015 NLC Conference that the NLC was unable to manage its own affairs and
disgracefully ridiculed the movement, embarrassed its membership and Nigerian
workers, is a matter that need close scrutiny. How did we arrive at this terrible
situation? The answer is not far fetched. It considerably accounts for the weak
presence or near absence of the movement in policy debates and political
contestations in Nigeria today.
Ethical Bankruptcy and The Lessons
Partly because today’s union leaders are
alienated from the conditions of their membership, it is difficult, if not
impossible to distinguish a unionist from an employer or our public officials.
To a greater degree, union revenue is hardly limited to workers contributions
(check off dues) that are usually about 2% of workers pay.
Grants from
employers and governments are today greater proportion of union revenue, far
greater than check off dues. As a result, like CEOs in government and other big
establishments, Presidents and General Secretaries of Unions live lavishly and
unions have multi-billion Naira projects, which are not consistent with values
of collective agreements negotiated by union leaders. Most of the unions with
vested interests of fielding candidates for positions in the NLC were reported
to have paid hundreds of millions of Naira as check off to NLC. These were
unions that struggled in the past to pay some thousands of Naira to NLC.
The consequence is that unlike in the 70s,
80s and early 90s, union leadership appears very splendid. The major unions
today, with interest in the current leadership contest, notably MHWUN and NUEE
used to struggle to pay less than N1 million monthly check off. Today, both
unions are reported to have paid hundreds of millions of Naira each as check
off to NLC. This is not a reflection of membership recruitment or wage
realities in each of the sectors. What is the source of the money? May be it is
not the business of members or delegates to investigate. In which case, the
mandate of the new leadership could have been surreptitiously determined.
Today, we daily face the sad embarrassment of
having our labour leaders accused of misappropriating union resources, being
unaccountable, collaborating with employers and government to the detriment of Nigerian
workers. In some ways these allegations have always been there but because of
the capacity of the movement to undertake transparent collective action with
robust internal debates, integrity of leadership was guaranteed.
Where leaders
are found wanting, disciplinary process was allowed to weed out recalcitrant
leaders. For instance, financial reports were constantly presented, debated at
all organs of the movement and always formed the basis of internal enquiry and
decisions.Nominations and appointments into committees, projects, government
statutory bodies, etc. were always debated and decisions democratically arrived
at.
The 2015 Conference of the NLC clearly
abandoned all these. Signals of crisis were public knowledge but somehow, the
NLC leadership, perhaps ignored them. In fact, even before the Conference
issues of financial misappropriations in NLC became subject of public protests
especially in relation to housing scheme promoted by the NLC that many workers
subscribed to. The situation led to disruption of NLC Civil Society Program
with political parties at Yar’Adua Centre, about a week before the conference
by protesting workers.
With respect to elections, it was clear that
there were tensions with leadership of private sector unions alleging some
violations of internal agreements. All these couldn’t have resulted in the
disgraceful event of Thursday, February 12 if the rich traditions, conventions
and regulatory controls of structures of the movement were allowed to prevail.
Anyone with clear knowledge of the workings of the NLC would have expected that
both the process of nominating conference Committee members, terms of
references and receiving reports of their work, all organs of NLC would have
met and reached some decisions.
For instance, the National Administrative
Council (NAC) involving elected officials and Heads of Departments of Congress
would have met to agree on proposals regarding composition of membership and
terms of references. The proposals would have gone to the Central Working
Committee (CWC) comprising NAC members and Presidents and General Secretaries
of all the affiliate unions. Once adopted, the National Executive Council (NEC)
comprising CWC members, treasurers of affiliates and State Chairmen and
Secretaries of NLC would have been summoned to give final approval.
Based on this, there would have been a NEC
meeting to approve date of conference approve composition of conference
organizing committee, credentials committee, among others. Together with dates
of conference, closing dates for nomination into offices as well as procedure
would have also been agreed. The conference organizing committee handles
matters of logistics while the credentials committee handles issues of computing
number of delegates based on unions’ financial contributions in line with
provisions of Congress’ constitution. The credentials committee also handles
issues of nomination.
Once nominations are closed, the NAC, CWC and NEC would
have met to look into the reports of both the conference organizing and
credential committees. Disputes or grievances with respect to number of
delegates allocated to unions, disqualification of nomination papers, etc. for
instance could have been redressed.
In the process of debating delegates per
union, Congress’ financial report would have been debated. Many issues would
have come under scrutiny here. Questions of under, over subscription and
sources of union funds would have been checked. There is also the issue of integrity
of aspiring leaders based on records of their performance with respect to
transparent management of Congress’ projects.
There is no doubt that all the organs of
Congress must have met in line with provisions of the NLC constitution and
convention. What then went wrong? Some of the reports indicated poor handling
of debates resulting in either inconclusive debates or decisions that were
hurriedly taken or imposed. The case of report of the credential committee
disqualify the nomination papers of President of National Union of Road
Transport Workers of Nigeria (NURTWN) may have been one of the cases. Inability
to deliberate on such matters exhaustively open up the conference to issues
that would have been sorted by lower organs.
Perhaps because lower organs were not managed
properly, issues of financial report were also left open. With very strong
allegations of financial mismanagement running into billions of Naira, emotions
and tempers were high among delegates at the conference. It is possible with
all these to have still organized a hitch free conference. This would have
required some clear organization ensuring that security wasn’t taken for
granted. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be serious security
arrangement, at least as reflected during the voting process.
It is incomprehensible that in contemporary
Nigeria, elections involving assembling some 3,200 delegates in one roof will
be organized without the visible presence of our regular police in the hall.
Accounts indicates that it was only after the crisis leading to the destruction
of ballot boxes started that not more than five policemen who looked confused
and threatened were brought into the hall. This was after conference was
disrupted on Tuesday, February 10 twice, first with the issue of re-opening the
nomination of the President of NURTWN that was disqualified by the credentials
committee. Followed by refusal of the NLC leadership to allow for debate on the
NLC financial report.
What needs to Done?
What is very obvious is that the NLC
conference was set for the disastrous outcome that emerged. Unfortunately, the
NLC Secretariat proved completely incompetent. Otherwise, how could the
conference be disrupted on February 10th during the debate on
financial report and the NLC Secretariat did nothing to mobilize for security
during voting? On the 10th, Chairs were thrown around the hall by
delegates, which should have indicated what might come during voting.
Didn’t the NLC Secretariat foresee all these?
What security arrangement was put in place for the conference? Now that we all
have to deal with the shame that came out of the conference, what is the way
forward? So far, the NLC has convened a meeting of NEC for Wednesday, February
18, 2015 and indications are that NEC will be requested to approve proposal for
conference to reconvene on February 25 to conclude elections.
In order to ensure that everything is done to
prevent repeat of the sad events of February 12, the NLC Secretariat should
wake up to its responsibility. Two issues readily come to mind here. The first
is the issue of security. NLC should mobilize the Nigeria Police to provide
adequate security for conference such that safety of ballot boxes and votes can
be guaranteed.
The second issue is the question of the ballot
papers. Accounts from the disrupted conference indicated that the NLC
Secretariat vacated its responsibility of producing the ballot papers to the
conference organizing committee. This led to the abuse of the process, which
produced varied ballot papers. This must not be allowed again. Congress’
Secretariat should under no circumstance abdicate such responsibility again.
The third issue is that there are allegations
of some Secretariat staff on account of their support for some candidates, also
fuelled the crisis. It is important that order is restored and NLC staffs are
made to demonstrate high measure of discipline and commitment. This may require
setting up a committee to investigate the conduct of all NLC staffs leading to
the shameful event of February 12. All those found to have been culpable should
be sanctioned in accordance with the NLC conditions of service.
The fourth issue is the need to protect the
integrity of the NLC. With the allegations of financial embezzlement, there is
the urgent need to setup a strong investigation panel comprising some of our
veteran leaders to investigate the matter. The committee should be given enough
powers to access all NLC accounts and report to NEC.
Beyond the NLC
The need for a strongly united union movement,
especially at this point in our national life cannot be overemphasized. We are
faced with the danger of an orchestrated constitutional crisis by the Federal
Government with the postponement of the general elections to March 28. Clearly,
the political reality that may follow such a constitutional crisis would call
for broad alliance of patriotic forces across all shades of interest. The role
of NLC with a membership base running into millions in mobilizing national
actions to defend our democracy will be crucial.
As lawyers would say, he who comes to equity,
must come with clean hands, NLC would need to put its house in order and join
forces for the democratic national rescue with strong moral quotient. This has
been the credentials of the Nigerian union movement. In all our trying moments
as a nation since independence, it was only in the struggle against the
Yar’Adua cabal in 2009 and 2010 that NLC leadership under Comrade Omar shied
away from teaming up with national patriots to contribute to the struggle for
democracy. On that occasion, the struggle was to eliminate the vacuum created
by the absence of sick President Umaru Musa Yar’Adu. All these are now
forgotten as President Jonathan and his functionaries are publicly recognized
as ‘Comrades’ to NLC leaders even though at the critical point in 2009 and 2010
when they were called upon to join the forces of democracy, they were visibly
absent.
In some ways, there is a lot of similarities
between our national realities and realities faced by our non-governmental
organizations. Like in government, our non-governmental organizations are faced
also with problems of corruption, incompetence and lawlessness. Everything is
about protecting the vested interests of our leaders. Organizations that are
standard bearers of change or change agents should take the extra steps to model
the way forward. Rather than sweeping allegations of corruption, organizations
like NLC should investigate such allegations and in the process clear leaders and
throw them up as national leaders.
Conclusions
The objective of this memo is to offer
suggestions to our union leaders regarding how best to get out of our current
shame. It is my hope that our leaders pay attention to issues raised in the
memo.
May God Almighty protect our NLC and Nigeria.
Amin.
Salihu Moh. Lukman can be
reached through smlukman@gmail.com
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