The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is faced with a serious challenge. It has remained a popular voice against the deregulation of the downstream oil sector.  The NLC is presently in a serious dilemma and caught in the web of two strong opposing ends. While the government is on its knees begging the congress to accept deregulation, the Nigerian people expect the NLC to resist the policy. While the NLC is striving to balance the two ends, accusation and counter-accusations were already going round that the leadership of the congress has sold out and compromised. The NLC held an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on this issue in Kaduna to find a way out. General Secretary of the congress, Comrade John Odah, in this interaction with SOJI-EZE FAGBEMI gives the NLC’s position.  Excerpts:

THE protracted issue of deregulation has been on ground for a while and Nigerians have been waiting on the NLC to vehemently resist the policy and ensure that it does not see the light of day. The Acting President, Goodluck Jonathan also called you to a meeting on the issue some days ago. At present, where do you stand?

We have gone through the report of the Committee on Deregulation set up by the National Executive Council of the congress, which was set up following the several interactions we had with the Federal Government last year and decided that we are not going to accept a situation whereby the Federal Government would use the case of deregulation to increase fuel price. We also say that government must address the issue of fixing of the refineries first and either go into partnership with private sector, or encourage private sector to establish refineries so that the 40 per cent shortage, which would be there, even though the four refineries are working at full capacity, will now be produced in such a way that Nigeria can have both fuel, diesel and kerosene in abundance without going into importation. All these were among the conditions the NLC gave at the end of its meeting on December 15 and we did a communiqué which was dully sent to the Federal Government. Effectively, between December 15 and when the acting president called us last, neither us, nor the government is willing to move from its positions. So the acting president called the Organized Labour and pleaded that the issue of deregulation has gone on for so long now and they wanted resolution of the matter to be able to move forward and that he will want a small committee of Labour and government to go and trash out all the grey areas so that they can move forward without opposition and fight, which have been associated with government trying to increase the price of petroleum products.

With the situation as you have just explained, how would you respond to the allegation that the NLC leadership had probably been given money by the government to relax on the issue and support deregulation?
Well what I will say is that this present leadership of the congress will not compromise in its defence of Nigerian workers as a result of any form of blackmail; we have been steadfast and committed towards ensuring that the price of petroleum does not increase in the past and so we cannot throw away that now. We think we have all what it takes to match the government in terms of discussion and debate, and our report by the deregulation committee, if you go through, tells that we have been very faithful to the position of the NLC that Nigerian people should not be allowed to suffer on the account of inefficiency  on the part of government and its parastatals, among others. We, however, recognised that this sector, that is, the downstream sector of oil industry is in big crisis and we need to get the crisis resolved together in a way that the Nigerian people will get to enjoy the benefit of Nigeria being among the oil producing nations. That is why we talked about fixing the refineries and ensuring that new ones are built so that we can export fuel and create jobs, as against what we do now as a result of the importation of everything we need in terms of petroleum products.

One important issue we must talk about is that of the national minimum wage which you have also been battling with the government. How far have you gone and when will the Nigerian workers start enjoying the new wage? 
What I can say is that the work of the tripartite committee handling the issue of the national minimum wage is almost at its conclusion, and the committee will soon finalise their work and send it to the government, which would later send it to the National Assembly.  What I am not able to say now, partly because there hasn’t been a final agreement on it, partly because it is not our responsibility to declare it and also cannot comment on the exact figure; but we can say that there had been an appreciable progress on the work by the Justice Belgore Committee, on which NLC, TUC, and NECA, including others, were represented. We do hope that as it is being practiced in the past, when a committee finishes its work, the National Assembly will give it expedite action in such a way that a new minimum wage had to come into effect probably before the end of the first quota of this year.

Specifically, how much has been agreed on as the minimum wage?
Labour went with the figure which it has asked for which you know, that is N52, 200. We tried to defend that but you know in every negotiation, it is a process of give and take and our members who are in this committee put in their best to ensure that we argued the case we made in the initial  memorandum.