 You're welcome back to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. We're talking about a conversation that began, you know, on Monday, really, the NLC declared a 5-day warning strike in Cajunas State over the sack of about 7,000 workers from the state civil service and other parts of the state. You know, they began to protest and it was just a lot because we saw pictures of, you know, what looked like thogs attacking that NLC protest in Cajunas State. We spoke to NLC president, Aibawaba, here on the show yesterday and other Labour leaders as well. And the headlines we've seen today is that NLC has called off the strike, saying they want to negotiate with the federal government on the way forward. And to speak more on this, we've invited a risk and policy management expert, Mr O'Shnoe Ibrahim. Good morning. Thanks for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. Good morning, Nigerians and good morning to you all. Good morning. So, after what seemed like it was going to be a stalemate, you know, a brick-man ship, Labour saying this protest will run its full course for the next five days. The Cajunas State government standing its ground to say we're not shifting grounds, you know, these workers have been sacked and nothing will be done about it. We see that Wabba announced that the NLC suspended the strike immediately to give dialogue a chance. Did you expect that this would happen so soon? I will start by commanding the federal government of Nigeria for standing up to save the ordinary citizens and the Cajunas and especially the Nigerian workers there. I believe what's happened is just, you know, a test for the true leadership. Wabba has been a very dogged, responsive, gentle giant over the years. I have known him at least in the last 20 years. Governor Narsu also believes that a lot of things needs to be corrected in the state civil service. I remember in 2007 when we are clamoring of unlawful political recruitment into civil service, I'm taking it from the handbook of Governor Rufai. Where a governor or a political person believes that for me to bring unneeded civil service into the system, or civil service into the system will make me to win an election and the rest of them, but forgetting that the liability of payment and salary and emolument will be showed on the state governor. You can imagine Cardinal State's local government system and the primary escape sector, including superb, having nothing less than over 27,000 workers and some of them are living in Nabuja, some are living in Lagos, some are living in Kalu, some of them are not even coming to work at all. You can imagine that and the state government out of the revenue is very small and manual revenue they are collecting, they are paying for recurring expenditure, they are paying almost 70% on salaries. So, and this is not about Cardinal State alone, a lot of states who are afraid to take that bold step, to tell them that look, I don't need your service and this has to give way for this. You can imagine a Cardinal State, a very big state for instance, spending almost 80% of the revenue on recurring on civil service. You can imagine that. What about the other ordinary Nigerians, who are not civil servants, who are not in public service, who needs light, who needs road, who needs good medical care, who needs other social amenities that are not benefiting from the resources of the state? OK, well, when it is... They are not benefiting from the resources of the state. So, I believe what happened is as a result of the restructuring that we are clamoring for. The power at the center is too much. The state should be able to harness its resources so that they can get more revenue and take out their liability and expenditure. I believe what is happening between the state and Cardinal State government is a very pure lack of communication. You know, if you are quoting the federal law section 2 or section 20 of the labor law, Cardinal State will tell you that they have their domestic power and they have the right to make their laws to harness or to channel their oppression in Cardinal State. So, that's why I'm appreciating Dr. Chris Inge again for bringing the full party to the table so that peace give way. All right, Mr Ashinaw, that's what I see from our conversations yesterday with Ayubah Waba. You know, there has been people who have mentioned ghost workers, and you know, like you've also mentioned here, there's people who are benefiting from the state funds without actually being in the state service or being at work. But is it a failure of the Cardinal State government to clearly show or prove that these are ghost workers? The labor president also mentioned that there was no conversation between the government and labor before these steps were taken. And so it feels like it is just a cutting down of numbers because the state cannot pay, which is unfair. I think we've lost him there, you know, and that's where I feel like there's some misunderstanding here. If you say, you know, we are sacking 7,000 people without actually being able to show that these were ghost workers, then it leaves room for questioning. And then if you say, oh well, you know, we suddenly cannot pay this number of people, and so we're going to fire, you know, 7,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 workers, it still sounds very unfair. So we need to know what it is, what the excuse is. Yeah, it's not the workers' fault that you can't pay them. You know, if they are part of the state's workforce, they are meant to be paid. But Ayubah Waba even argued otherwise yesterday, atlining just how much the state makes in Internet and Generative Revenue. Exactly. How much they get when it comes to federal allocations every month. So he argued, you know, with figures that the state does have the funds to pay their salaries. Well, the state, you know, might also have their own counter argument and say, you know, that's not true. But, you know, in the lack of, you know, clarity, in the lack of a natural conversation, in the lack of these meetings, and I think that's one of the challenges that they had. There was no correspondence between both sides before, you know, those steps were taken. If you fire 5,000 people because, well, you can't afford to pay them, what do you expect those 5,000 people to do? And isn't it a failure on your part that you can't pay your workers? Isn't it a failure on the part of the government that they've not been able to generate enough internally generated revenue, including support from the federal government and government allocation to pay workers? So, you know, how fair, you know, would the government see it? And, you know, for people who say, oh, you know, sometimes you need to make, you know, take certain steps and, you know, dam the consequences and just go because that's what a true leader does. No, you don't fire 5,000 people in a country where we still have one of the highest levels of unemployment in the world. A box 23 million unemployed. How many of these 5,000 people are going to decide, well, I think I'm going to go into kidnapping. Look at what Cardona is dealing with, you know, security-wise. How many of these 5,000 people or 4,000 people who have been fired will maybe go into crime? And so there has to be a balance somehow, some way. And, you know, being a brute leader is not the answer. Welcome back, Mr Oshinowo. There is obviously some delay with the connection here, but we'll see how we can manage through. What I was asking is, should the government have been able to prove that the reason it sacked these 4,000 or 5,000 workers was genuinely because they were ghost workers? Or is it fair enough that they simply just suck because, well, we can't afford to pay these many people anymore? I will answer that question in two ways. I've been a special adviser in the legacy of the government and I know what is ghost worker. I also know that politicians will load the civil service schedule of a plant with frozen names. Or people who are not into the service so that they can get some, you know, some stipend at the end of the month. Secondly, the Cardinal State government right now has been bleeding. The financial strength of the state has gone so low based on the dangling of the national resources or the share that comes to Cardinal State in terms of the revenue, the fact everywhere there is economic crisis. Probably River State and Lagos State are the ones surviving. Maybe because of their prudency and financial management are probably on taxes. But it is a known fact that most of the states are suffering. They don't have the financial strength to take care of this high number of civil servants in their respective state. Also, if you can do a simple investigative journalist to find out that most of civil servants who are on the schedule of most of the state government, some of them are prosy, some of them are not even working. They are not in Cardinal State so you will blame the governor for fishing out these guys. If they are 30,000, they have to leave because they are not working and they are hanging salary and the liability is on the shoulder of the government. So what I expect the labor and Mr Nosedu will fight to do is to come to the table. It's not about who wins and the governor, leader does not use force. You use dialogue to show your strength. That is what I expect from the governor. The governor is not a minister anymore. He is not a digital guru again. He is a governor. He can express governor. He is a two-time governor. So I expect him to sit down with the national leadership of the neighbor and fight to other areas. If you have asked 20,000 or 7,000 to go on whichever number, you have to pay them. If you can't pay them at once, you have to negotiate with them. I will pay social time. I will pay this one. I will pay this time. I will pay this time. So these are the things that he needs to do. But if you say that these persons have been on the wage bill of the Cardona State Government without actually working and they are ghost workers, then why do they need to be paid off now that they are fired? There needs to be some balance here. If you say that they have been on the wage bill just surviving, not working, politicians have put some of all those names there to gain money from the Cardona State Government, then why is there a conversation about paying them off when they are fired? Because they are not legitimate staff in the first place. Look, let me say this very clearly. You cannot use illegitimacy to end legitimacy. You cannot enter into the civil service. There is a number of times that you have to come to work in civil service. Let's assume you were engaged during the Governor of Yakuwa, when the late Governor of Yakuwa was in service, and for five, eight years you didn't show up in the office and you were handing the state revenue, and the government noticed that you had not been around and you had to go. You are not expressing the Governor to pay you instantly. Don't forget that the states to pay the pensioners, they have the backlog of pensioners that they have to pay. They have the current working civil service staff that they have to pay. So these are the immediate need for the Governor. The Governor will take his priority that, who am I supposed to pay? Is it you that you have been handing the state resources for eight years or five years that have not been coming to work? Am I going to pay you all that? But all these things are what they call, you know, table discussion. You have to bring the labor. The labor let them understand that these are the things that we need to do. The existing workers, they need to be taken care of. The lawful pensioner who has retired from the state civil service also needs to be well taken care of. So if all these proxy workers, we are fishing them out, we are not expecting me to pay them right now. I am going to pay them at social, social, social time at this trend and batches. So that is allowed. All right. So, Mr Oshinaway, Brian, are these some of the... So the Governor is right by telling them that I am not going to pay people who have not been coming to work for five years or for two, three years. So I will continue to pay. If you look at, you know, they have not been holding salary. I think the Governor is doing well on that. So the labor must also understand that that is where in the trying time in this country. You understand? So they want us to know that. So when they get to the table in Abuja today, hopefully we will see what is going to happen. But I am sure that wisdom will prevail. OK, Mr Oshinaway, really that meets in the shadow to hold at 11am today. What do you think are some of the decisions that they are likely to reach that you feel this to be a middle ground? Because we've seen situations where, you know, there's a strike, they have dialogue, but they fail to reach, you know, a decision and then they go back striking again. What I can see is that the labor has shown maturity and I am calling on Governor Nassir Oherufa, a big man in a small body to please also to shift ground. If we not declare the labor leader wanted, of course I recognize that the state has their own laws that any other person must comply with the law. The labor leader is not immune from persecution. So but I appreciate what labor has done last night. They respect the federal government, the call of the strike temporarily. So I expect the Cardinal State representative in Abuja today to also shift their base to let reason prevail, to let labor know that they are financially strung. They need finances to take care of their demand and other priorities and other investments is there for them to develop. So if you look at Cardinal State today, the governor has done fantastically well in terms of prudency management at a time he reduced some salary of the government functionaries. He also that I know, I know him very well, he's not living lavishly, he's not a governor that lives extravagantly, he's a prudent man. So if it were to be other governors who just live lavishly, I would state it very clearly here, you understand. So these are the things that I see that I expect the labor leader, both of them should have reasons to come to the table and hire not whatever. So I see them moving forward. I'm not sure and I see labor also that the strike will not continue because ordinary Cardinal citizens are suffering. Investment they have been shut down, airport has been shut down, power has been shut down. All the major facilities, most of the spaces are not working. So these are the things that I see that make them to rethink so that everybody can be on the table and all the strike workers too can be compensated in one way or the other. So I call on government to please to, among us, to reverse some of the decision by sacking the nurses, by sacking some staff who are joining the labor. Is the father of the state, he should please and please rethink and let a wisdom prevail. First of all, I don't know if we would like to celebrate a government official for not living lavishly. They are not expected to live lavishly in the first place. They are servants of the people and so I don't know if we should be celebrating that. But then second, the sacking of the nurses and lecturers, isn't that almost a signal to show the way that the sacking of those 4,000 or 5,000 people the decision was taken without actually knowing whether these persons were coming to work or whether they were ghost workers or not. The speed at which that decision was taken, doesn't that in any way or does that show you or tell the same way those 4,000 people were sacked in the first place without actually looking deeply into whether these people, like you've described, come to work once in four years. If you say that, you will not be feared to the government, I'm going to go into few policies. There is in risk management, there is what we call stress testing. The state government right now is stress testing. They know their posts, they know their processes of recruiting and disengagement. Let me call your attention that Governor Rufai, I'm not a spokesperson and I'm not intending to be. I know that he wants to, when he wants to elect, do a primary of local government chairman, he asked some of the contestant to come and write a test so that anybody that he is putting as a chairman or he'll be elected as a chairman, let me use that one, will be a competent financial manager and somebody who can weigh the risk of anything he wants to do. So I'm not seeing Governor Rufai to just sack a civil servant with a higher level of level 10 or level 8 upward on a fiat on a stable, there is a process. The head of service must be involved. They must do proper due diligence considering the Cardinal's civil service law. So I'm not seeing Governor Rufai doing what you just said. I'm sure he must have gone through all the due process to disengage all these guys. And if you look at the presentation of the head of service, the woman, she made some very cultured and decent reasons why they are sacked and the process at which they are ejected out of the system. So we need to give them fair hearing. They have the process. They cannot do a sack of the above level 8. They have to go through the process. But the first thing you mean is that he will employ at disengage. Even the federal government, when the 2015, came out the ocean for instance, the state, more than 10,000 from the federal civil service, prosy civil servant. These are general routine in government. When you notice that you cannot undo the liability of the wage bill, you can ask some surplus or excess staff to go. It happens in private sector. It happens in private businesses as well. So these are the things. And I also call another state government who are using 90% of their monthly allocation to pay salary. It is not turnable anymore. That is why people like us are clamoring for constitutional review. This constitution that we are using is a prosy, is a product of military error. Seven months sitting down in a supreme military council and drafting one document, it is not turnable again. The state government should be able to harness these resources and pay reality into the federal government. First, so that they can have resources to engage, to pay other expenses and liability on their state. Most of the state, like a kitty, like a shell state, like a boy, a handicap, going to be a state. They don't have money. All right. Miss Abraham, if you can hear me. Miss Abraham, I want to ask you lastly. Miss Abraham, this is just one of... Miss Abraham, can you hear me? All right. If you can hear me, this is just one of the many protests that we've seen in the past few years regarding labour, the judiciary staff union workers striking, doctors striking here and there. What lessons really can we say we have learned from all these strikes and the demands that Nigerian workers are placing on the government? You mean the lessons from the state government or from the NLC? On both parties? If they are not to look at both sides, both sides have learned few lessons. They have learned few lessons and they will continue to learn. Like the governor, I was not happy with the governor looking, declaring the NLC a labour leader wanted. He has never committed any crime. He is a lawful Nigerian and also is representing what he is doing is constitutionally right. But the governor also has the right to protect the state because if the protest is hijacked and some of the state properties or investment are damaged, it will cause the government a lot more to do it. So it is a welcome development that they are going to meet today so that we can move forward. There is a tension in the land already. If you look out everywhere from the east, south, west, north, name it, there is tension. So we don't want more tension, especially in Cardinal State, for a governor who is doing very well. We don't want any issue with him. I think it is a win-win for both of them. I will use that word. Ibrahim Oshinawa, thank you very much for joining us and for your time this morning. Thank you. Apologies for the slight delay in the feedback there. Thanks for that conversation. Of course, from 11 o'clock when the meeting does take place, we will bring you further updates on the Labour Cardinal State Government and the Minister of Labour engagement. Stay with us so we'll go on a short break when we come back. Would you be sent to jail for 15 years if you pay ransom to kidnappers in Nigeria? That's a new bill that has been brought forward at the National Assembly. We'll talk about it after this break.