Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday said that regardless of several challenges facing Nigeria, the current administration has been steadfast in tackling the issues facing Nigerian workers.
He said that was why President Muhammadu Buhari implemented an increase in the national minimum wage in 2019.
Addressing workers in Abuja to mark this year’s International Workers’ Day, the vice president added that the administration had embarked upon the most ambitious programme of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa to cater for children through school feeding programme, youth employment through the N-Power scheme and other support initiatives under the National Social Investment Programme, among others.
Speaking on the theme of the year, “Labour, Politics and the Quest for Good Governance and Development in Nigeria,” the vice president added that the question of what sort of politics can deliver good governance and development was decisively answered by progressive politics.
“The struggle for social justice, equity and fairness is an inter-generational one but each generation writes its own chapter of progress. Just as it took time to win our independence from colonial rule and just as it took time to establish democratic governance, we are moving steadily and surely towards a more progressive Nigeria,” he said.
The vice president also appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the broader labour community to seek the path of dialogue to end its strike.
The lecturers’ demands include funding of the Revitalisation of Public Universities, Earned Academic Allowances, the use of University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as payment platform and the payment of promotion arrears.
Others are the renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement and its complaints over the inconsistency in Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), among others.
Osinbajo said that the federal government was not unmindful of the ongoing strike in public universities and also the anxieties of students and their parents and the thoughts of an uncertain future.
The vice president, however, noted that disagreement and debate had always been part of the relationship between labour and the government.
He added that “even as we disagree today, we must not do so as mortal adversaries but as members of the same progressive family.”
According to him, both the government and the lecturers’ union want the same thing – a country that works for all and offers each citizen a fair deal – even if occasionally they differ on how to achieve this goal.
“But at all times, we have through dialogue found a path forward. It is in this spirit that I call on ASUU to embrace dialogue with the government. I call on the Nigeria Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress to help facilitate a resolution of this dispute through dialogue. I believe that we can find a path forward in good faith. And this is what we will do,” he added.
On his part, the minister of labour and employment, Dr Chris Ngige, also urged organised Labour to continue to eliminate actions inimical to the quest for good governance and development in the country.
Ngige appealed to labour unions to embrace consensus building in times of differing opinions, rather than debilitating actions that lead to complications.
He said such complications include loss of man-days and decreased productivity that threaten the existence of the enterprise and result in job losses.
He, however, frowned at the situation where strikes are always the first option considered by the unions in pressing home their demands.
