The Minister of Labour, Emeka Wogu, in this interview, gives his reactions to the resolution of the general strike embarked on by organised labour and other issues surrounding the removal of fuel subsidy and why he believes it will benefit the masses. Soji-Eze Fagbemi presents the excerpts:

AS the Minister of Labour, you must be very concerned about the recent general strike and mass protests led by labour. How will you react to its final resolution?
I have to first of all join all other Nigerians to commend Mr. President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for his personal intervention and insistence that there must be dialogue by all concerned. Again, we have to thank him for putting democracy first because the beauty of democracy is what Mr President has exhibited to everybody concerned. So it is not only exemplary, it is equally a guide for people who aspire to go into political position both in Nigeria and in sub-Saharan Africa.  One of the hallmarks of a good leader is to listen to people and which he did. There are various positive imputes of people, but there were other people who equally expressed certain opinions and took certain actions that were not really within the contemplation of democracy. For instance, calling for a regime change is not within the contemplation of democracy, or heaping insults on the persons of the President and other government functionaries.

 But at the end of the day, the President listened to comments from well-meaning Nigerians. That led to the cut down on the pump price of petroleum with a re-assuring message that fuel deregulation was pro-people, and that it was intended to improve on the state of dis-repair in public infrastructure. He assured that it was to create jobs and to add value to what was already existing and you can agree with me that these things never started with this administration. Infrastructural decay had occurred long before the assumption of office eight months ago by Mr President.

It is equally good to mention again that labour, at some point, availed themselves for dialogue and it was the meaningful dialogue that led to this resolution. So labour equally lived up to the expectation of the provisions of both conventions and extant laws and the expectation of government because government reached out to labour to come and dialogue. It is equally heart-warming to learn that labour has equally promised to avail themselves of the opportunity of the Justice Alfa Belgore Committee which is equally set up to dialogue on labour issues. You can see that when the strike started, Mr President first of all reached out to Nigerians in his speech and empathised with Nigerians because of the sufferings that came subsequently with the subsidy removal.

This is not peculiar to Nigerians; people are witnessing such pains in Ghana and in other areas where subsidy has been removed. As a result of deregulation, people will feel the pains, but the pains are short termed and it depends on what government has put on ground. In Nigeria, the SURE programme is already there, and the SURE programme is designed to reinvest whatever will accrue from the deregulation policy. The government rolled out the mass transportation programme, the maternal and child care programme is in place and there are other laudable projects that would create jobs. So, at the end of the day, there will be benefits to Nigerians both in short, medium term and long term.

How did you see the role of the National Assembly in resolving the crisis?
The National Assembly as a body played a mediatory and reconciliatory role and when you say the National Assembly, you include the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives initially intervened and then went into a full deliberation of the issues on the floor and came up with certain points in their resolution. Senate played a mediatory and reconciliatory role which went a long way, and this was done jointly with the Governors’ Forum and many of governors were part of it. It was initiated at the instance of Mr President. The mediatory process, the full dialogue and the full discussions at the end of the day were initiated by the President, who in addition to the high-level of discussion that had taken place, equally personally intervened. We thank God that the issues have been resolved, and resolved positively with Nigerians.

The labour reaction is presently leading to revelations of so many things in the National Assembly, especially at the House of Representatives where huge corruption has been discovered in the activities of the PPPRA, NNPC and the Petroleum Ministry. With this outcome, will you still blame labour for the action they took or justify it?  
Let me tell you, labour raised an issue of fuel pump price increase and went on strike. That issue has been addressed and the workers are back. The strike is suspended, while the mass rallies have equally been suspended. Those other issues were not in my knowledge. The simple issue that came up was that labour is going on strike except the government reversed to status quo at N65 per litre. That was the issue. That issue led to strike and subsequently along the line some other people hijacked the process of strike which labour equally acknowledged by even asking their members in some states not to participate in violence through protests.

You mentioned the issue of the Justice Belgore Committee and the palliative being provided by the Federal Government, such as in the area of transportation. Why was the Committee inactive throughout the period of the strike, even when it had been inaugurated before the strike?
Immediately it was set up, the first notice to attend meeting was given out and labour at that particular time said they were not attending, but now everybody has agreed to return to status quo in terms of dialoguing with Justice Belgore’s Committee. Since the committee has been set up it has been functional; it is just that at some point, labour insisted they were not appearing. But right now, if you listened to the speech of the President of NLC jointly with the President-General of TUC when the strike was suspended, you would hear them say they were ready to come before Justice Belgore Committee.

Has the committee started meeting?
When they start meeting, it won’t be in camera. Everybody will know when they start meeting. It is a committee that is already in place.

The Federal Government came up with 1,600 buses to ease transportation problem across the country, but considering the population of Nigeria, the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, is that really enough to solve the problem?
What was rolled out during the strike penultimate Sunday was about 1, 600 buses and those buses have been effectively deployed and more are coming and I don’t think the subsequent ones would attract the same attention that the initial ones did. But you know, it is continuous, so more and more are joining the fleets at different locations. So, what you saw was the ones that were launched in Abuja, 1,600 and they have been deployed. If you watched the news recently, you found out that people were on television saying that they paid N100 from Gwagwalada to Abuja which is even cheaper than what it used to be before the increase and removal of fuel subsidy.
How will the government ensure that this gets to the grass roots?
You mean grass roots?

Yes?
You mean the people in the rural areas?

Yes, what is the plan to ensure the service gets to them?       
It is going to permeate, and then in addition to what the state governors will do at their own levels, and what the local government will do. You know it is a Federal Government assisted mass transportation programme. It will go round.

Will the issue of the refineries in the country be addressed by the committee?
The Belgore Committee will tackle the labour issue while the Kolade Committee will tackle the issues of the refineries and other associated part of the programme as contained in the SURE Programme. We still have the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and those issues including the revamping of existing refineries will beresolved. The real intent of deregulation is that it will stimulate the private participation in downstream sector of oil and gas industry and when that is done you will see that people will come back to start local refining of petroleum.

So, that is one beauty of this deregulation and I think Nigerians have come to understand the intricacies of deregulation.  Nobody is forcing it down the throat of Nigerians, but Nigerians now appreciate the fact that it will not only stimulate the economy, it will create jobs; it will promote private participation in that area. Don’t forget that the President said that the PIB would receive accelerated attention. The committee has already been put in place to begin the process of initiating the completion of the bill.

There are eminent Nigerians working on it. Nigerians will heap appreciation and commendations on the person of Mr President. Difficult reform is difficult to push through, but we are in the threshold of taking Nigerians to the Eldorado they have been expecting over decades.

How is your ministry addressing the issue of unemployment in the country, or has the ministry left the responsibility to the Ministry of Finance?
Employment has a correlation with the economy. We have a lot of policies that are directed at creating employment in addition to what every other ministry or minister is doing to tackle the issue of employment. So, it is a collective thing.