The recent national strike in Nigeria ended after only four days. Femi Aborisade argues that despite the sudden surrender of the unions, working class people have shown that they are a force to reckon in the process of policy formulation and implementation.

The four-day general strike in Nigeria has once again demonstrated the potentials of the working class to influence the course of history. President Umaru Yar’Adua admitted this much when he said the strike ‘wreaked havoc on economy and our people’ (24 June 2007). Government offices, private companies, petrol stations, ports, airports, schools and hospitals closed down. Commercial vehicles were off the road and major highways became football pitches for youths. Oil exports in all terminals except one were prevented. In short, the strike ‘paralysed’ Nigeria.

While President Umaru mourned the paralysing effects of the strike on crude oil exports, ordinary people saw in the strike an opportunity to express a striving to free themselves from the shackles of poverty. Over 70 per cent of Nigerians, about 98,000,000 people of a population of 140,000,000, live in extreme poverty, with less than a dollar a day. In the midst of pervasive poverty, former President Obasanjo, in the twilight of his tenure, took the following actions: The prices of petrol, kerosene and diesel per litre were increased by ten Naira (^10.00); petrol (PMS) was raised from ^65 to ^75, kerosene (DPK) from ^54 to ^64 and diesel (AGO) from ^54 to ^64. This amounted to an increase of over 15 per cent in the price of petrol/litre, and about 19 per cent increase in the prices of diesel and kerosene. VAT rate was raised by 100 per cent, from 5-10 per cent. In addition, six companies, including the Port Harcourt Refining Company Ltd (PHRC) and Kaduna Refining and Petrolchemical Company Limited were sold to foreign and local private companies without resolving labour concerns. Public sector employees were also agitating for payment of 15 per cent increase in basic pay, which the former President had granted but never implemented.

The poor perceived government actions as punitive measures to compound their agony. The payroll tax, called PAYE (Pay-As-You-Earn) has recently been changed to 10 per cent of gross pay instead of the previous policy of taxing only basic pay, after making allowances for dependants, children and the aged, etc. There are also the following taxes: National Housing Fund (NHF), 2.5 per cent of salary; Pension deductions, 7.5 per cent; National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), 5 per cent. These add up to 25 per cent of the employee’s pay. Workers earning poverty pay would be hard hit by the increase in VAT because they spend the bulk of their earnings on consumption items. Increases in the prices of petroleum products automatically cause increases in the prices of all other goods and services.

The process of increasing the prices of petroleum products was illegal. The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPRA) was established by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPRA) Act No. 8 of 2003. Section 2 of the Act provides for the membership of the PPRA Governing Board, which includes representatives of organized labour. Section 7 empowers the Board to determine the pricing policy of petroleum products. Paragraph 1 of the 1st Schedule to the Act prescribes that the Board shall take decisions by majority support. The Board never met. It was the Secretariat of the PPRA that unilaterally increased the prices of petroleum products. The increases were therefore illegal.

Besides, there was no economic rationale for the price increases. Nigeria currently produces an average of about 2.6 mbd (of crude oil) and exports about 2.3mbd. (Udo, 2007: C7). The 2007 budget was prepared on the basis of a benchmark value price of US$30 per barrel. With the price in the international market hovering between US$65 and US$70 per barrel, this translates to between US$35 and US$40 per barrel going into the excess crude oil account.

The privatisation of public enterprises, including the sale of refineries, violates the current Constitution of Nigeria, which provides that wealth shall not be concentrated in a few hands and that the State, not the private sector, shall manage the major sectors of the economy. [Section 16 (4)].

The strike was therefore declared to achieve the following: reversal of the N10 increases in the prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene; removal of 100 per cent increase in VAT, from 5-10 per cent; payment of 15 per cent increase in basic pay for public sector workers, and review of the sale of refineries and power generating plants.

The labour movement gave a 14-day ultimatum, which government treated with levity. In fact, spokespersons of the regime threatened that even if labour embarked on strikes and mass protests for ten years nothing would change (The Guardian, 19 June 2007: 2). The Government declared the strike illegal following the judgment of the Court of Appeal in an earlier case where the court held that the Nigeria Labour Congress had no right to call out workers on strike against general economic and political decisions of the Federal Government because such have nothing to do with breach of individual contracts of employment with various employers as envisaged in the Trade Disputes Act.

While the Nigerian labour law restricts the right to strike and the judiciary goes ahead to declare strike action against general economic and political policies illegal, Nigeria is a member of the International Labour Organization, which recognises the right to strike as a fundamental right. The Abolition of Forced Labour Convention No. 105 of 1957 prohibits the use of forced or compulsory labour ‘as a punishment for having participated in strikes’ (Article 1 sub-paragraph [d]). Also, the Voluntary Conciliation and Arbitration Recommendation No. 92 of 1951 states in paragraph 7 that no provision of the Recommendation ‘may be interpreted as limiting, in any way whatsoever, the right to strike’. As a member of the international community, it is incumbent on any country that seeks to acquire the status of a civilised state to give effect to resolutions emanating from an organisation to which it belongs.

In spite of all the pre-strike arrogance of government officials and spokespersons, less than 24 hours to the strike, in a desperate effort to avert the strike, government offered the following concessions: increase in VAT rate from 5-10 per cent was revoked; 15 per cent salary increase to be effected for federal employees with effect from 1 January 2007; the N10 per litre increase on the prices of kerosene and diesel was reversed and reduction of the N10 per litre increase in the pump head price of petrol to N5 per litre.

Labour accepted all the concessions but one, insisting on reversal of the price of petrol/litre to the old rate of N65. The strike then continued until it was called off suddenly with effect from the midnight of 23 June 2007, without winning the demand. Labour capitulated on the basis of a letter by President Umaru Yar’Adua promising not to increase the price of petrol for the next one year. In effect, petrol will continue to sell at N70 per litre. The other concessions contained in President Yar’Adua’s letter included an undertaking to set up expert committees, which would include representatives of labour to examine the issues of petroleum pricing mechanism as well as sale of refineries and power generating plants. Government also undertook not to take any disciplinary action against any worker participating in the strike.

Daily Sun (25 June 2007: 6) explains that the role of traditional rulers, particularly the Sultan of Sokoto, was decisive in the sudden capitulation by the top labour leadership. However, there was a division even within the top leadership. As Sunday Punch (24 June 2007:13) reported, a section of the TUC leadership had threatened to call a Press Conference ‘to express a few reservations on the agreement labour reached with government’. Working class youths were angry about the sudden back down by labour leadership: ‘why embark on strike by rejecting the N70/litre price of petrol which government had offered in the bid to prevent the strike taking off, only to turn round to accept what had been rejected?, they questioned.

Dress Rehearsal Strikes

The anger of working class youths against the sudden surrender by national labour leadership is understandable. Weeks and months preceding the strike, there had been series of threats of strike and actual strikes, as dress rehearsals, preparatory to the nationwide strike. These included strikes by Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) workers, Electricity workers, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASSU), and protests against the controversial 2007 general elections organized by the Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO). There were also sabotage activities, bombings and kidnappings by militant groups and mass protests in the Niger Delta against exploitative oil companies as well as threats by self determination groups in the South Eastern part of Nigeria to disrupt the hand over program to a new President if key self determination leaders were not released from detention.

What the foregoing shows is that the working class, in several sectors, had been infuriated and imbued with a fighting spirit to protect jobs and improve their overall living standards. That opportunity to express their anger and reverse the privatization process has temporarily been botched by the shocking compromise and sudden strike call off. But it would be a temporary set back. On the basis of a system of exporting crude oil and importing refined products, we do not need a soothsayer to predict that crises lie ahead.

Gains

Regardless of the weaknesses of the strike, the working class has shown that based on a united force of organisations of the poor, it is a force to reckon with in the process of policy formulation and implementation. The strike represents a message to the ruling class that labour will not just slavishly accept attacks on its rights without a fight. No matter how marginal, the reductions in VAT and prices of petroleum products are gains that could not have been won without a fight. Also, contrary to the threat of applying the ‘no work no pay’ rule, one of the agreements in ending the strike was that no worker would be penalized for having participated in the strike.

Weaknesses

However, the basis of the united platform upon which the strike was called was not brought to bear on the strike sufficiently. Whereas the Federal Government made a concession to implement the 15 per cent increase in basic pay, similar commitment was not extracted from the state Governments. This resulted in the continuation of the strike by State organs of the unions in states like Oyo, Osun, Ekiti, etc - after the nationwide action had been called off (See for example Nigerian Tribune, 26 June 2007: 5). Similarly, ASUU, which had started its strike three months before the nationwide strike, had to continue its strike until 1 July because the agreements reached did not touch on their concerns. In the same vein, though workers in the Niger Delta participated in the strike, some militant groups in the sub region openly dissociated themselves from the nationwide strike on the ground that the plight of the Niger Delta people had never been the concern of organized labour.

Reactive or Proactive Struggles?

The 20 -23 June general strike was a defensive strike. Rather than being proactive, the leadership of the strike was reactive and predominantly economistic. The strike was not aimed at bringing about fundamental changes to the root cause of the problems. Instead of addressing the root cause, the strike was essentially about the effects of government policies.

The behaviour of the leadership of the strike fits into Marx description of non-forward looking trade union leadership:

Trade Unions work well as centres of resistance against the encroachments of capital. They fail partially from an injudicious use of their power. They fail generally from limiting themselves to a guerilla war against the effects of the existing system, instead of simultaneously trying to change it, instead of using their organised forces as a lever for the final emancipation of the working class. (Marx, 1958: 447, cited in Hyman, 1975: 98)

A more pro-active approach would require challenging the policy of reliance on private importation of petroleum products, insistence on investigation of corruption in the management of existing refineries, and advocating local refining through existing and new state-owned refineries.

Central to the fuel crisis in Nigeria is the government commitment to the neoliberal principle of disengaging from economic activity and promoting the private sector in the supply of critical goods. The idea of promoting the private sector, combined with stupendous financial corruption involving about US$550 million in the Turn Around Maintenance (TAMs) of the refineries, results in crippling the state owned refineries, in order to justify reliance on the private sector for importation of petroleum products and sale of the refineries under the guise of inefficiency of state enterprises.

Who Should Control Industries?

As the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, 2001: 7-9) has pointedly posited, the big question for today is: how is industry to be controlled? Given the subsisting capitalist economic structure, the challenge is to interrogate managerial control with a view to accommodating a role for workers who work in each industry, and in the cases of mineral producing areas, the communities, in managing the enterprises. This suggests that working class organizations must reflect and advocate comprehensive solutions to issues regarding production, pricing and distribution of goods in an equitable and ecologically sustainable manner through advocacy of involvement of the trade unions and communities in the running of industries.

Mode of Strike Action and Process of Strike Call Off

That the strike was called off without resorting to the members, organs, and groups that sustained the strike for the period it lasted raises the issue of industrial/trade union democracy. Working class organizations must provide efficient democratic structure and process for carrying on daily struggles for better conditions and pay. The organs that take the decision to embark on strike must also be the ones to decide to call it off. With that kind of perspective, the need for mass protests and rallies rather than a-stay-at-home strike action will be seen.

The stay-at-home strike action renders the rank and file passive participants in the strike process and deprives the strike of the inputs and influence of the members from below in determining the direction of the strike, leaving the decision to call off or continue strike actions to the whims and caprices of the few leaders. In this regard, the Nigerian labour movement has a lot to learn from its South African counterparts that subjected government offers of wage increases to discussions at mass meetings of individual affiliate unions, during a strike that was taking place simultaneously in the two countries.

Indefinite or Limited Strike Action?

The strike also revealed the weakness of ‘indefinite’ strike action. Indefinite strike action is applicable in a situation in which the objective and subjective conditions point to the possibility of the working class taking over political power. Without such a revolutionary situation in existence, the state cannot tolerate ‘indefinite’ action. The situation will have to be resolved one way or the other, in revolutionary change or restoration of political control by the capitalist ruling class. For a working class leadership that completely lacks the perspective of the working class taking power, ‘indefinite’ form of action is a recipe for sudden back down. Therefore, it would be better to base actions on defined, limited number of days or weeks, continuation or discontinuation of action being determined by the mood and preparedness of the working class and the other poor strata, expressed at mass meetings. In other words, an attempt should be made to distinguish the Gramscian moments of ‘war of movement’ (when the actual revolution is ongoing) from moments of ‘war of position’ (when slow but steady preparatory revolutionary work is taking place).

Conclusion

The importance of drawing out lessons of struggles is implicit in a statement by Marx: ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted by the past’ (Marx, 1958: 247). It is hoped the lessons discussed in this paper will benefit future struggles.

* Femi Aborisade is a lecturer at The Polytechnic, Ibadan. He is the coordinator of the Centre for Labour Studies (CLS) & an Associate of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

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