The Level Of Power Poverty Is So High

… Comrade Joe Ajero

Comrade Joe Ajaero, General Secretary of National Union of Electricity Employees, former Deputy President Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), and Vice- President, Public Service International, an East and West English Speaking Africa organization representing workers in about 150 countries in the world ran for the post of the President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). In this interview with Uzo Chikere, he speaks on the botched NLC election, politics and his life as an activist among other critical issues. Excerpts:  

Your candidature featured prominently in the last NLC delegates’ conference. What really were the issues? 

The issues are very clear. You see, the only position I have not held in the union is that of the President of the NLC. I have been the general secretary of an industrial union and I have reached a point of no promotion. I have been the Deputy President of the NLC.  I completely finished one term and the President of the NLC has finished his term. Naturally, I should aspire and from the way we organise it in the labour movement the deputies usually take over. We are three deputies; incidentally none of the other two is vying for the office, so I made myself available. There are equally some other factors that play a role, most of them unwritten but we have always abided by it. We have this North-South balancing. We have the private sector-public sector balancing and like I said earlier the issue of hierarchy which I am a senior to the man trying to challenge me. After considering all the criteria I made myself available and after consultation with several unions to vie and given ones pedigree I declared interest. Initially we had an agreement that the private sector should produce the next President, on the basis that we harmonized offices. That the public sector unions, where the last President came from should take nine positions, private sector unions to take seven positions including the President. We all agreed. It was at the point of filling forms that my contender now also picked form for the Presidency contrary to an agreement reached with all the unions in the country, so that generated a lot of controversy and we have been on it. Initially he said it was because the unions in the private sector did not bring a single candidate but then myself and the President of NUPENG were still vying but we were able to debunk it because even the election that produced Abdulwaheed Omar the public sector did not bring one candidate and there was nobody from the private sector that challenged them since Adams finished from the private sector and it was the turn of the public sector to produce the President so we left it for Omar and Fidelis Edeh. But since they couldn’t agree on one candidate, people voted for them.  So now that it is our turn this person still went ahead to pick form so at the floor of the election the other candidate stepped down for me. People were now asking questions on his real motive to contest. Besides too, morally speaking he is not supposed to vie for the position. This is because his tenure as the President of Medical and Health workers union expired in 2013 and he has remained in office illegally just to contest. For that, in the labour movement, we don’t have regards for people who violate the ethics; who violate their constitution in order to remain in power for ever. So these are some of the contending issues. The last one was the issue of choosing delegates; 90 percent of the delegates came from their geographical area, with a deputy President running under his platform. And we are saying that this cannot be the Nigeria Labour Congress; Nigerian workers from all over the country must be involved, and they must determine what happens in the union. What is the justification for you to give Lagos state, one delegate, when your union was given 527 delegates? Averagely if you look at it, every union must get not less than 14 delegates. Now if you look at the population, Lagos should even get more. So why did you give Lagos one delegate? Why did you give Oyo state one delegate? Why did you give Kwara state one delegate among others? So these are issues that we raised and if you look at this process of manipulation, it is alien to a Pan-Nigerian organization like the NLC. But it appears that they were determined to manipulate the process further and that was what led to the ballot paper manipulation which now climaxed into protest. One must commend Nigerian workers for the vigilance if not a lot would have gone wrong. For the first time we have booklets containing ballot sheets/papers that were personalized on the candidate. So you will see a ballot paper containing Joe Ajaero in the booklet; you will see a ballot paper containing Ayuba Wabba, three of them in one booklet, so for those who understood the game they will tick three for him and my supporters will tick one for me. He will score three and they will tear it and put into the ballot box and they are with different serial numbers. Some of the ballot papers did not have my name. It wasn’t duplication and as fate would have it they didn’t manage it well. This was very technical; scientific manipulation that only an extra vigilant eye can decode. It was glaring that the ballot papers were deliberately printed to facilitate the rigging of the election in favour my opponent.

There have been allegations of compromise against the NLC leadership that you are part of on issues of workers welfare. What is your reaction?

Well, it is a question of leadership style. In the history of NLC, when leaders come on board, their pattern; their orientation; their background also affect their actions. If you watch the leadership of Adams Oshiomhole, from the private sector background, and a full time unionist, it was different. I think that is the mistake people are having. They are comparing it with the leadership of an employee – Omar, a teacher and part time unionist. Definitely, it cannot be the same. Now, I am coming from that same background, a full time unionist from the private sector background, coming to see whether we can restore one or two things that have gone bad. More or less, I think it has to do with the strength of the person, the background of the person and his capacity to change things. I served as a deputy president under Abdulwaheed Omar and a deputy president, to a very large extent is a spare tyre. I am not sure anybody heard Omar’s voice during Adam’s tenure. Within that period, the highest I acted was about two weeks, and we did a major picketing – the flour mill picketing in Lagos. I led it. It was to rescue the workers who were being victimized. So, I don’t think anybody is right to say that all of us were involved. However, we have constituencies. My constituency happens to be the power sector. And I think it has been very active.  First and foremost, you have your own union before NLC. NLC is no union. NLC is an umbrella body. If everybody should do his work from his own union, there won’t be problem in the labour movement, except when a union has problem, then NLC comes in. I don’t think that my union has scored a low mark throughout the period we have been there.

Let’s look at the problem of casualization. How have you been tackling it?

It is a big evil.  That is the problem I have with the person running against me. For four years, he happens to be the chairman of anti-casualization committee, and nothing has happened. Apart from the one I mentioned to you that I led when I was acting then, Nigerian workers were suffering. But in my sector, even before privatization, those contract jobs, we fought and I insisted that there employment must be regularized. In a nutshell, casualization is second slavery. And these multi-nationals and Nigerians practicing it, don’t mean well for the economy. Even the laws of this land frown against it. That you can’t keep a worker perpetually as casual staff. I think it is an area that we must look at. From where I am coming, we have addressed this significantly, except of late it is trying to rear its head again after privatization. We are trying to find out where it is happening to address them.

Government officials say all outstanding packages to power workers have been settled. But your colleagues disagree.  What is the true position?

I don’t think that those government officials are fair. Unless they are living outside the power sector. I know that over 5,000 people have not been paid their pension, their gratuity. I equally know that there are a lot of dead beneficiaries. I know that no arrangement has been made for those incapacitated, because there are people who have suffered various forms of amputation, some paralysis as a result of electrocution due to their work. Nobody has made any provision for them in the post privatization era. I know that the Act is clear. The workers are entitled to 10 percent equity share. I know that that has not happened. It will be wrong to say that everybody has been paid. I equally know that every staff was underpaid; every of the almost 50,000 staff was underpaid by 16 months. I know that three, four weeks ago there was a verification exercise and thousands of people trooped out with their documents. Each time we protest, they will come up with verification; they will pay few people; they will stop again. And they have been trying to blackmail us that we don’t want these new investors to succeed. That is why we have been slowing down. They have not paid everybody and if we take any action now, they will say we are the people responsible for it. But we have been pushing to make sure that everybody is paid. 

How worried are you bout the state of power supply in the country?

Well, I am so worried because before the privatization I said I was not going to talk again. The level of power poverty is so high. The global standard is that there should be 1,000 megawatts for every 1 million people. But today, we have over 160 million Nigerians with less than 4,000 megawatts. And the situation is getting worse by the day. And I say that the private sector cannot provide electricity as a social service. The private sector does not have the capital required to develop the economy; industrialize Nigeria. But the government thought it otherwise and handed it over to the private sector. I am not aware of any new power station that is being constructed today by the private sector, except the ones government had concluded before and is thinking of commissioning. That is the only thing I know. I am equally aware that a lot of billions, if not all the amount that they paid to take over the sector has equally been given back to them, as well as equipment, transformers and so on to enable them perform and nothing is forth coming. I argued then that there should be availability before you talk of accessibility and affordability. And based on that, the private sector cannot guarantee that; that if Nigerian government tries to make sure that there is power available, who runs it won’t be a problem. In South Africa, you have about 43,000 megawatts. Even today they are talking about power cut. But they are trying to meet up with the policy of one million people for 1,000 megawatts. And that 43,000 megawatts is 100 percent by the South African government. I equally argued that the United States, the home of capitalism, 250,000 megawatts is produced by the government of The United States. And after that, the municipals, the private sectors, the states, now generate their own to meet up with their target of one million megawatts. What that means is that you can’t blackmail the government of the U.S. because if the worse happens, they make sure the 250,000 megawatts is available at least for the less privileged, for the hospital, for military installations, for schools. But in our situation, if you watch what happened during the fuel scarcity, if the private people say they will not import fuel, the country will suffer.  If the private sector in the case of electricity says that the tariff must be 1,000 per kilowatt hour, and the government says no, then there will be no electricity. I argued then that there should be what we call base power. That even the 4,000 the government is generating through the PHCN, Nigerian government should keep that one. And since you have licensed the private sector, even if they generate 100,000 megawatts, Nigeria will take it. And then let us have this 4,000 megawatts still under government control. Rather, what they did was to transfer public monopoly to private monopoly. So they transferred the 4,000 megawatts to the private individuals. That is not privatization. No new megawatts have entered into the system. I don’t know how that will be a solution to the problem. If you ask me, I will advocate for a summit where some of us who are critical stakeholders should come out and say the things the way they are. Or else if we continue to hide this way, Nigerians will continue to pay high for no power. If you watch it, you will start to wonder why we should privatize without first of all metering the country. Now, you leave them (Nigerians) to the vagaries of the market and the dictates of the private sector. At one place you pay 20,000 naira, and there you pay 10,000 naira because it is not metered.   Those are areas they could have been covered through the regulatory commission before handing it over to the private sector. That is my fear. Come to think of it, the private sector took over the sector for market maximization. They are not Father Christmas. So, if it is 4,000 megawatts they have, they will make all the profit on 4,000 megawatts, increase tariff every three years because some of them borrowed from banks. And they are paying. When the interest rate increases, it is from the consumers they will make the money.