Follow Us on Google
By Sunday Ani
Amid the growing clamour by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), for an upward review of the workers’ wages, and the Federal Government’s set up of a tripartite committee to address the workers’ demand, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 elections, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has said that wage increase at this point of hyper inflation in the country would have little or no economic impact on the living condition of Nigerians.
He stated that having more money does not translate to quality life, rather the focus, according to him, should be the purchasing power of the Naira. In other words, it is not the volume of money in one’s hands that matters but what the money can buy.
He said: “There are things we need to understand in basic economics. Having more money does not guarantee you anything. Everybody who’s living today has more money than Julius Caesar. Anybody who’s living today has more money because at that time, the entire British economy was not up to one billion pounds for the first 1000 years of her existence. Purchasing power is what is important.
“So, what we should focus on is what the money can buy, not the volume of money that is with the minimum wage. How much was my father earning when he married my mother? He was not earning 20,000 pounds at that time a year. So, now can you pay anybody 20,000 a week and the person will not curse you?”
He argued that what is needed is to increase productivity so that the purchasing power of the Naira will be strengthened and workers will enjoy whatever amount they receive as the minimum wage. “But, you have to increase the volume of housing available. You have to increase the volume of food stuff available. You have to increase the number of classrooms available. You have to increase the spaces available for productivity by making sure you ramp up production,” he said.
Prince Adebayo noted that the organised labour does not represent the interest of a greater number of Nigerians as only a few Nigerians belong to the organisation. He said: “As for organised labour, they are a subset of the Nigerian political class. They don’t represent the workers. I am not saying that to insult the present leadership or anything. No, it is just the structural part of it. Before you can be a member of the NLC or the TUC, you must have a job. And there are more people without jobs than people with jobs.
“So, if you are unemployed, you are not a member of any labour union because it’s only for workers. So, the challenge we are facing is how to put more people in the workforce. They are not as representative as you think.
“Secondly, productivity and things that can affect productivity are the things that labour is supposed to be fighting for, not just wage control only. If the government is bringing a policy that is going to affect productivity, labour should know that there will be job loss.
“That was the difference between Obama and Mitt Romney when the election was decisive. When you ask people of Michigan, who they will vote for, they will tell you they will vote for Obama, who saved their jobs, not Mitt Romney, who wrote an article, ‘let Detroit be bankrupt.’
‘So, those workers are not voting according to ethnicity, religion or any politician that can give them money to mobilise them and settle their leadership, they are voting according to their interest.
“If you save General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, you have saved thousands of jobs, you have saved thousands of families, and you have saved millions of people. So, I want labour to engage the government more meaningfully, not just negotiating for N1 million per month.”
