*’How Can You Lead Workers You Don’t Live With? How Can You Negotiate For People Whose Suffering You Don’t Feel? He Has Abandoned Workers’
*Concerns Over How TUC President Funds Alleged Intercontinental Travels
By Felix Durumbah, Abuja
Who fights more effectively for Nigerian workers? Where must such leader reside? And how does such leader practically demonstrate understanding?
These are some of the worrying questions thrown up by the ongoing war of words between President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, and his colleague in Trade Union Congress (TUC), Comrade Festus Osifo, over the half year-long N70,000 monthly transport support announced recently by the Federal Government (FG) following negotiations with NLC, to further cushion transportation hardship for workers.
Recall that TUC opposed the support,saying it stood by moves towards a new minimum salary, with the labour centre suggesting an amount of N300,000 monthly. However, the current minimum wage of N70,000 will, by law, lapse on 1 June 2027 in the wake of adoption by the President Bola Tinubu administration of a three-year wage review cycle.
The TUC position on transport support was immediately criticized by the NLC President who said TUC was not part of negotiations for the N70,000, suggesting that the labour centre was less than caring for its members’ interest amid the biting cost of living crisis in the land.
TUC fired back, saying, among others, that with the N70,000, what NLC accepted amounted to mere “crumbs.”
Today, Comrade Ajaero has revealed that the TUC President hardly stays in Nigeria, alleging that he resides in the comfort of the United States (US) and so cannot feel what the average Nigerian worker is going through on a day-to-day basis under the Tinubu economy.
During an interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, the NLC leader alleged that Osifo only flies into the country to attend labour meetings before rushing back to the sweet confines abroad.
“He (Festus Osifo) is an absentee President of the TUC. He doesn’t live in Nigeria. He comes in from the United States to attend meetings and rush back,” Ajaero declared.
He did not, however, say who foots the expensive bills for such international flights for an umbrella union created to fight for better conditions of service for suffering workers.
The matter assumed a worrying life of its own following air fare checks undertaken by People&Politics which revealed that, presently, the average economy flight ticket from Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, to the US for many airlines falls in the bracket of $700 (close to N1m) and over $1,000 (about N1.4m) for a one-way ticket, while return tickets go for between $1,050 (a little above N1.4m) and above $1,600 (above N2m).
The rates could be more or less depending on airline choice, length of advance booking, final destination, and, more significantly, prevailing exchange rate.
Describing as shameful the situation where a man whom, he said, claims leadership of workers and concern for their welfare, does not live with them in the country to feel the pain of the workforce, Comrade Ajaero expressed doubts over how such a person can understand the nitty-gritty of workers’ dire struggles daily.
He said the TUC leader cannot comprehend what it means for an employee to purchase a litre of petrol at above N1,000, pay children’s school fees, feed the family, pay house rent under the present economic realities.
Ajaero claimed that Osifo is lapping up the constant electricity, super roads and good things of life in the US and allegedly cannot understand what the Nigerian worker is going through presently.
He said: “How can you lead workers you don’t live with? How can you negotiate for people whose suffering you don’t feel? He has abandoned workers.”
Given the magnitude of hardship in Nigeria, he added, NLC, with more than 60 affiliate unions and millions of members, cannot continue to wait for a labour leader who, he further claimed, only visits the country, before it (NLC) negotiates better wages and the N70,000 support.
*PHOTO CAPTION: L-R: Ajaero, and Osifo.
