Who will break this mother of all deadlocks?

[DT]

It is difficult to think of an episode quite like this in contemporary Nigerian history, with so many citizens passionately clinging to one side of the argument, while the Federal Government sternly clings to the opposite end of the argument while the streets are burning.

By this morning, the nationwide strike action jointly called out by Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trades Union Congress (TUC) to protest the complete deregulation of fuel prices announced on New Year's Day has entered its fifth day. Actually, the protests began in many parts of the country even before the top labour organizations waded in from last Monday and took over its leadership. Throughout last week, protests had been going on in many cities, led by civil society groups and sometimes without any leadership at all, but they became more structured and slightly better controlled with Big Labour's entry.

The strikes and protests have achieved a very large measure of success in that they have paralysed economic and social life all across the country with the closure of offices, schools, markets, banks and petrol stations. Hundreds of thousands of people have also marched on the streets across the country to register their anger at the withdrawal of fuel subsidy and to demand a return to N65 per litre fuel prices.

Yet, the strike has had its weak sides. Although there is much talk of a "nationwide" strike and protest, it is noticeable that very little protest has taken place in President Goodluck Jonathan's native Niger Delta region or in the adjoining South East region. Even though work has grounded to a halt in those regions, the few street demonstrations that took place were in many cases in support of the president and his policy.

Some community leaders of the Niger Delta region also tried to introduce a communal dimension to the protests, suggesting it was a Northern plot to drive out a Niger Delta native from the presidential seat.

Now, although the strikes were generally peaceful all across the country, at least 20 lives have been lost already in Ilorin, Lagos and Kano. The strikes turned very ugly in Kano when some protesters deviated from the stated routes and launched an attack at the Government House. The police then fired live ammo, leading to the loss of at least 5 lives and the imposition of a 24 hour curfew.

In Kaduna too, some protesters reportedly left the main route and headed for the Government House, leading to the firing of much tear gas and the clamping of a punishing 24 hour curfew, which was only partially relaxed yesterday.

The worst strike related events however took place in the Niger State capital, Minna on Wednesday. After two days of relatively peaceful protest, the protesters went wild on the third day, attacked and burnt many offices, cars and other structures, including campaign offices, houses and the state INEC office.

Economists have been calculating the country's economic losses from these events to be in the region of N100 billion per day. This means that in only 10 days, it could hit the N1 trillion mark, nearing equaling the amount that government said it is trying to save from subsidy removal.

So, where did matters stand in the hope for a resolution to this mother of all recent Nigerian disputes? Not much, is the summary of it. For the first 3 days of the strike, almost no talks were going on to try to reach an agreement. Each side dug in to its maximum demands, one for full acceptance of deregulation of fuel prices, the other for full reversal to the old price regime.

Government was totally disinclined to negotiate with labour leaders. It hid behind the technical point that the strike is illegal because the National Industrial Court had ordered the unions not to embark on it. Besides, government clearly hopes that strike weariness will soon set it and the protests will fizzle out on their own.

This is not impossible because, although the anger at subsidy withdrawal is very high, the reality of absolute and relative poverty is also very high in Nigeria. At least half of the urban population has no food for more than a day and must go out every morning to eke out a living at the motor parks, yards, shops etc. A prolonged strike that shuts down the economy will further imperil their situation. Things are even worse in those places where curfews have been clamped, namely Kano, Kaduna and Minna.

Perhaps in appreciation of that, labour took the first tentative step towards a compromise on Wednesday evening when it offered to move away from its demand for N65 a litre or nothing and said it was ready to accept a "price adjustment." This could be anywhere between N65 and the post-subsidy price of N138 to N150, perhaps something like N90 or N100.

Yet, the government team at the meeting brokered by Senate President David Mark, led by Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Anyim Pius Anyim was adamant, saying government will not negotiate unless the strike action is called off.

The negotiations also suffered from a lack of mutually acceptable negotiators. In the past, traditional rulers would have been in the forefront of the efforts to achieve a settlement. However, after the palaces of some prominent Northern emirs became targets during the last post-election riots, not many were willing to step into this quagmire. Former Heads of State and prominent clerics also took their cue from the royal fathers and stayed away, at least publicly.

The only visible peacemakers left were the Senate and House of Representatives. Of the two, the labour side prefers to listen to the reps led by Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal because the House held an emergency session last Sunday and called for a reversal to N65 in exchange for a suspension of the strike. For the same reason, the presidency prefers the mediation of Senate President David Mark, whose chamber did not take sides in the dispute, publicly.

As at yesterday, the joint intervention of the two chambers managed to achieve some acceleration in the pace of the talks. A government team led by Anyim was talking to a labour side led by NLC president Abdulwaheed Omar with the Assembly leaders as mediators.

With this week having gone down the drain for Nigeria, productivity wise, the weekend has now set in. the mediators will impress it on both sides that the damage to the economy and the loss of lives and other high costs of the strike and demonstrations are enough and ought to be ended as soon as possible. They will urge that a resolution be reached this weekend so that the country can begin to gather the pieces from this episode by the time work resumes on Monday.

It remains to be seen if both sides will move sufficiently enough to meet somewhere in the middle, and to postpone the final battle over fuel prices and subsidies until another day.



DailyTrust