Nigerian worker: suffering, smiling but still working

KEN UGBECHIE

So, a day was set aside just for you. It’s called May Day, Workers’ Day, Labour Day. It’s just a day out of 365 days in a year. It’s to celebrate you, you are told. It was not the creation of the Nigerian government. Far from it. You are too inconsequential to enjoy a day-off. It has its root in the class struggle by workers in the United States. Slaves and serfs tilling their masters’ field with bare knuckles.

On May 4, 1886 in Chicago, United States, history recalls the protests of the proletariat in Haymarket Square. For protesting, the poor overworked folks were bombed. They did not ask for a change of government. They did not seek to usurp power. All they demanded was to be treated like humans, to be allowed to work for 8 hours a day rather than the all-day-long routine. Just that. And for this, they got red eyes; they got maimed, they got bloodied.

From that era of the 19^th Century, May 1 has been adopted to celebrate the working class. It has since become an international movement fuelled by labour activism spreading largely from Europe to the rest of the world. You see, Workers’ Day was never a day for merriment. It was to mark the revolt of the workers (the underclass) against the short shrift and vicious treatment from their masters.

The sad news, however, is that whereas the worker, your colleague, in other climes have had their tears wiped away by their governments over the years, you still wet your pillows with blobs of tears.  You cry and cry to get your wage. Your master cares less. He is the taskmaster. A servant deserves his wages, says the Holy writ, the Bible. But not here. Your master thinks you do not deserve even a morsel. When he pays, if he pays, he takes it as favour to an undeserving scum. Yet he expects you to work all day, everyday. He expects you to report to duty from anywhere you call home yet he pays you wages that can’t take you home. Really?

But he’s the master, you are the servant. You cannot complain; you have no right to do so. You must report for duty under the rain, in the scorching tropical sun. Your master never cares; no public transport, no good roads yet you must report at your duty post. And with teary eyes you do. You trek long distances; you go on forced fasting. You pray he pays you your due wages but your master preys on your entitlements. Under normal circumstances, you should not be fasting and praying for your entitlements. They should just come to you because you earned them.

As it is with the government worker so it is with your private sector colleagues, or even worse. Whereas the government worker gets severance benefits and pension, most of your private sector colleagues get nothing. No pension, no severance package. The day your job stops is the day your pay ends. Take for instance, the Nigerian journalist. The editor, the reporter, they work like no other. They toil and till. They keep watch over others; fight for the rights of other workers but nobody watches over them. None fights for their rights. In fact, they have no right, no entitlement.

The right of the Nigerian journalist is to die for others. He is the one who keeps government actors on their toes; he compels them to account to the people. But the people do not fight for the journalist. He’s marked for death everyday. Dele Giwa, Bayo Ohu (The Guardian), Omololu Falobi of the Punch, jolly good Godwin Agbroko (Thisday), Bagauda Kaltho (The News), Ikechukwu Onubogu (Anambra Broadcasting Service), Famous Giobaro (Glory FM Bayelsa), Lawrence Okojie (NTA Benin), Abayomi Ogundeji (Thisday). Long list. These journalists, the conscience of the Nigerian worker, were all dispatched to early grave. It is the horror of the profession and it clearly paints the picture of the Nigerian worker. In most cases, they die without insurance, entitlements and any form of succor. And their families suffer. They were killed by never to be identified assailants, in some cases agents of the state.

Every Nigerian government has turned the worker to a pawn. They are articles of trade and tools for negotiation. The government negotiates the workers’ minimum wage. It debates whether to pay or not.  Only in Nigeria do governments at all levels agree to share money to pay the workers. So, they share money from the Paris refund, the excess crude account and the monthly allocations from the Federation Account all to pay this Nigerian worker. The caveat is that whereas these monies are shared in billions, the worker is still not paid. In some states, he is forced to take salary cut. In some cases, he is not paid at all for months and years. The governors feast on the money. They buy mansions offshore and live a lavish lifestyle too obscene to imagine. The local government chairmen take a cue from the governors. Marbled mansions in Abuja, in Dubai and anywhere their whims push them. They squander the workers’ money in wild orgies and lascivious indulgences.

But you see, you are the working class. You are the one whose wages are negotiated by those whose wages are never known, never negotiated. Karl Marx knows you so well. He said “political economy regards the proletarian (working class) like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle”. Pity!

This is typical of the Nigerian working class. He is like Boxer, the hardworking but copiously naïve horse in George Orwell’s classic, Animal Farm. Boxer was sheepish almost to the point of buffoonery. ‘Napoleon is always right’ was its maxim. Napoleon was the power-drunk pig In Animal Farm. He was the government of the farm. And he craftily fooled all the animals that he meant well for them the same way Nigerian governments tell their workers that they mean well. Of course they mean well. And they are always right, just like Napoleon.

The past government of Goodluck Jonathan dashed the worker a minimum wage of N18,000 at a time it was busy ruining the economy and plundering the purse. The extant government of Muhammadu Buhari, not willing to be outdone and be hated by the animal community (working class) is proposing N66,500 minimum wage after it has crashed the economy and sent prices of goods and services jumping out of the roof by its own incompetence and unforced economic errors.

That is the privilege(?) of the Nigerian worker. He is always discussed yet always neglected. He will toil and till like Boxer but there is always a Napoleon who takes the glory and ravages the harvest. But this Nigerian worker has not helped himself. His inability to forge a common front with his colleagues to effectively assert their right before a Napoleonic government is the reason he is treated as the scum of the earth. He must rise and wean himself of timidity.

First published in Sunday Sun