NEWS - Nigerian Police Thwart Labou

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Subject: NEWS - Nigerian Police Thwart Labour Protest

Title: Nigerian Police Thwart Labour Protest
Author: Toye Olori, Independent Foreign Service
Date: 12-AUG-1999
Source: <struggs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, DAMN's labor topic specialist
Reference: Business Report
http://www.busrep.co.za/busrep/busfront?sction=news&category=africa&articleI

D=9105&publishdate=19990812

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Nigerian police stopped the planned protest by the
Nigeria Labour Congress at the main entrance of the National Assembly
complex here on Tuesday.

Armed policemen prevented more than 10,000 workers from carrying out
their protest against the granting of huge allowances to legislators.

One placard carried by the workers read: "We no go gree, Monkey dey work
Baboon dey chop (We won`t agree, monkeys working while baboons are
enjoying the fruit of monkey`s labour)."

President Olusegun Obasanjo`s administration had approved 3.5 million
naira (R216,175) to each of the 109 senators and 2.5 million naira to
each member of the 365-member House of Representatives as furniture
allowance.

Other placards read: "Nigerian workers in their various states are told
that 3,000 naira minimum wage is too much. However, we hear now that 3.5
million naira for each senator and 2.5 million naira for each House of
Representatives member is too small as furniture allowance."

The workers insisted that Nigerian workers must be paid a living wage
first and objected to the reckless sharing of "our national wealth". The
congress had called on its members at the end of its Central Working
Committee meeting in Lagos last weekend to stage a rally in Abuja on
Tuesday to protest what it called "jumbo allowances" for members of the
National Assembly.

The congress is angry that while civil servants take peanuts as salaries
even with the new increased minimum wage, legislators who are supposed
to be part-time workers are demanding and getting huge allowances.

The congress alleged that the legislators saw their mandate as a means
of enriching themselves "at the expense of the Nigerian poor masses".
Adams Oshiomhale, the president of the congress, said labour was
saddened by the size of the allowances, especially against the
background of claims by some state governments that they could not pay
3,000 naira as minimum wage to workers.