By Joseph Atobisi
As a labour activist and keen observer of political events in the country, my attention was drawn to the attacks against the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, over his recent appearance on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” programme, where he declined to say on air his preferred choice between the presidential candidate of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ahmed Bola Tinubu, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP).
Leading the onslaught against Ngige was the deputy national publicity secretary of APC, Alhaji Murtala Yakubu Ajaka, from Kogi State, who accused him of engaging in “anti-party” activities. Ajaka told the minister and other federal appointees to publicly campaign for Tinubu or tender their resignation. Similarly, one Rev. Solomon Semaka, purportedly speaking on behalf of a civil society organisation (CSO), Save Nigeria Movement, described the comments by Ngige in the interview as indicators that he was working against the government of President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling APC. Semaka further alleged that poor handling of labour issues by the minister, particularly the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) imbroglio, was a deliberate ploy by Ngige to set Nigerians against the APC and its presidential candidate. On his part, the embattled Anambra State chairman of the APC, Basil Ejidike, released a statement disowning the minister, saying whatever statement he made in the interview was personal to him.
Back to the Channels interview. To begin with, Ngige is no stranger to controversy. He came into political limelight when he was elected governor of Anambra State in 2003 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Although his tenure lasted 34 months, he will for a long time be remembered for his sterling performance in office, especially in the development of physical and social infrastructures. History will also remember him as the governor who dislodged the greedy political godfathers who, prior to his assumption of office, feasted on the resources of the state.
During his tenure as governor, Ngige survived an attempt by the self-styled political godfather in Anambra State, Chief Chris Uba, to force him out of office, using the proverbial federal might. Acting on orders from above, an Assistant Inspector-General of Police, Raphael Ige (now late), stormed Government House, Awka, with two truckloads of policemen, on a mission to abduct the sitting governor and remove him from office, but their mission failed. Also, an Enugu High Court, presided over by Justice Stanley Nnaji (also late), ordered the withdrawal of his security details. Many of Ngige’s contemporaries as governor, such as Joshua Dariye, Rashidi Ladoja and Ayo Fasoye who drew the ire of the same federal forces were thrown out of office through impeachment, even without meeting half of the requirements for the impeachment of a sitting governor.
But, in Ngige’s case, he neither resigned nor was impeached until the Justice Garba Nabaruma-led 2003 Anambra State Governorship Election Tribunal in Awka, believed to be acting out a script prepared in Abuja, nullified his election in favour of the petitioner, Peter Obi, of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Curiously, the same tribunal admitted that both PDP and APGA benefitted from the fraudulent votes cast in the same election. As a result of Ngige’s travails, great literary icon, Chinua Achebe, turned down the national honour offered him by the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.
After leaving office as governor, Ngige won one of the most contested senatorial elections in the history of Nigeria. This feat was remarkable for two reasons. One, he won election to represent Anambra Central in the Senate on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a party widely seen as a “Yoruba party”, thus breaking the barrier of the Igbo/Yoruba politics of rivalry and discord, traceable to the 1950s when Obafemi Awolowo deployed “ethnic card” to deprive Nnamdi Azikiwe of the premiership of the Western Region.
Secondly, to win that election, Ngige defeated former Information and Communication Minister, Prof. Dora Akunyili (now of blessed memory), who was the candidate of the ruling APGA in Anambra State. The election was held three times and yet Ngige won in the senatorial district of both the APGA sitting governor, Obi, and national chairman, Senator Victor Umeh. In the same polls, Akunyili had the strong support of PDP, which controlled federal power in that era, and even some elements within Ngige’s own party, ACN. In spite of the whole “gang-up”, Ngige won.
As an opposition senator, he played a pivotal role in the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013. The party was an amalgam of ACN, Congress for Progressive Change, the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of APGA.
For campaigning for Buhari presidency in 2015, his opponents tagged him a member of “Boko Haram” party and this cost him his senatorial seat. When Buhari eventually won the presidency on APC’s platform, he appointed Ngige as the Minister of Labour and Employment. His appointment was greeted with criticisms by many Nigerians who queried the rationale behind appointing a medical doctor as the minister of labour.
However, it took just a few weeks after his assumption of office for him to prove sceptics wrong. Being a stickler for excellence, the former Anambra State governor revolutionalised labour administration and management in Nigeria, adopting a proactive approach to the conciliation of labour disputes. A few examples will suffice here. Before he came on board, the Federal Government was at loggerheads with the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) over unresolved issues in the 2012 agreement they entered. Ngige quickly ended the dispute, which almost crippled the already beleaguered electricity sector.
He also resolved the protracted industrial dispute between ExxonMobil and a section of its staff, which even went to the Supreme Court and was returned to the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment for conciliation. The climax of his first tenure was the negotiation of the N30,000 Minimum Wage for all workers in Nigeria, which President Buhari, signed into law in April 2019.
Based on his sterling performance, President Buhari re-appointed him in 2019. It is instructive to note that from the time of his first appointment in 2015 till date, the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has conciliated over 1680 disputes, leaving very little work for the Industrial Arbitration Panel (IAP) and the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN). Under Ngige, the ministry has successfully conciliated disputes involving workers across different sectors, including, education, aviation, health, power, banking, petroleum, judiciary and legislature, among others.
With all these facts before us, I therefore found it “absurd” that somebody with gray matter in his head, could under whatever influence, say that Ngige’s poor handling of labour disputes was a deliberate plot to incite Nigerians against the Buhari Government and the APC. Which labour dispute did Ngige handle poorly? Anybody accusing him of poor handling of labour disputes is either ignorant or uneducated or both. It is clear that if not for his proactive actions, the ASUU strike would have been part of the handover note of the Buhari government to the incoming administration in May next year. Have we forgotten that he conciliated the dispute twice, first on February 22, one week after the commencement of the strike and some agreements were reached, and later brought back all the parties for further conciliation on March 1?
After the second conciliation, what was left was the issue of the renegotiation of the conditions of service of the university workers under the principle of offer and acceptance, which by the way, was his suggestion. The renegotiation broke down at the Federal Ministry of Education, forcing him to transmit the matter to the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), relying on the powers given to him as the Minister of Labour and Employment by Section 17 of the Trade Dispute Act, 2004, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN). The NICN ordered ASUU back to work and the Appeal Court upheld the decision. Ironically, the same offers that Ngige made to ASUU seven months ago, which they rejected, are what they acceded to today with the Speaker of House of Representatives, after striking for an entire academic session.
Finally, there is no inkling of evidence to show that Ngige is working against the government or the ruling party or Tinubu. All his actions as Labour minister have been backed with the Trade Dispute Act, Laws of the Federation (LFN) 2004 and the Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). By virtue of Sen. Ngige’s position, he is the only person constitutionally empowered to handle labour matters in the country. Labour is in the exclusive list of the constitution, which gives the Federal Government the prerogative in that area. Ngige does not conciliate/arbitrate only labour disputes involving federal workers. Nigeria is a multi-party state and he equally handles disputes involving state, local government and even private sector workers. His job is akin to that of the Attorney General of the Federation. Only an ignoramus will expect somebody holding such a sensitive position to assume the role of a campaign spokesman on national television. Regardless, he offered some words of advice to the leadership of APC and even predicted victory for the party if the needful was done, but his critics chose to ignore this part of the interview.
•Atobisi, a labour activist and public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.