Comrade Onikolease Irabor, the immediate past President General, Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria has made history b y successfully handing over power to a successor on March 27, 2009 at the union’s second quadrennial delegates’ conference which held in Benin, Edo state. In this encounter, he reminiscences on his eight- year tenure.
Trade unionism, how did it start?
When I started my first job with the Nigeria Port Authority as a cashier, I passed through all the rudiments of the working environment. After a while the workers decided to call me for a meeting and in fact I was surprised to be appointed as a leader. Initially I refused because I believed the job was not very clean, looking at what they used to say about past labour leaders, so because of that I already believed that every union leader is bad. I don’t like to join a place that is dirty, I did not know that I could change things, so that was how it happened and I became a Union leader, I think leadership has more to do with your personality and upbringing, not about going to school.
How difficult was it settling down as president general?
Well, as a former treasurer of the NPA workers Union before the merger, I held a number of positions in the NPA workers union before the merger; I was a Unit officer and later unit chairman. I became a district chairman in the NPA workers union also before the merger, and I served my two tenures and at the end of the second tenure, I was elected as Vice President of NPA workers union. I also worked with Late H. P. Adebola who was our general Secretary and at least I had to tap from experience and know exactly how they handle the Union. Later the Union had a crisis just an in-house crisis and from Vice President under Oroh’s administration, I was also elected the second Trustee, then after that I was re-elected as the treasurer of the Union then because the former treasurer was promoted, so I was moved foam the second trustee and they asked me to be the treasurer of the Union, and that was the time the Union was merged. I was the chairman of the constitution drafting committee of the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria preparatory to the merger. All the merger conferences of our Union, I attended all, and we planned all the strategies. They believed that what they had to do was to select a leader, and they selected Uzoije Ukaummunna to be the president. He was not elected and after he became a selected President, he drove us away. In fact, when we came on board after our election in Abuja, you are aware of what happened, I am also happy that you who is interviewing me now, you were a member of the government’s care taker committee which ran the affairs of the union, so I need not tell you what happened then, because you already know. But at least you expected that I would face some difficulties in taking over.
Yes there were few problems. Ukaumunna at that time said we would not take over. But we said to ourselves, if you are elected you are elected, if the power is given to you it is given to you, so there was no way the man can say we should not take over the leadership of the union. We took over and what we saw was that the foundation of the union was destroyed by the former president general and his team and we quickly swung into action to re- build the union, and we started the rebuilding process from the foundation that was destroyed by the former president general. First, wed discovered that there was no registration certificate for the union. If your union is not registered, what ever you do is illegal, so what we did was to put everything together and get the union registered, we have the certificate, after that we went into the issue of the staffing of the secretariat, making sure that everything that was destroyed was restructured, including their wages and benefits. The former administration came on board and reduced the salaries of the staff by 50 per cent, when we came in we restored the 50 percent and so many other things which we restored.
Rich union leaders, hungry members
That to me is a sort of blackmail, it is not correct. If anybody should tell you that union leaders live fat and their members grow lean, it is not correct. What is important is that the members have to focus their mind on is the condition of service. A union leader must be interested in the welfare of his members, who he is leading which we are doing, then you cannot say that the union leader should go naked, so that when they are going to negotiate they will not be wearing dresses. I don’t think they elected us here so that we’ll not be able to eat, by the time it gets to the time of our breakfast we wouldn’t have it, because they should be specific about this. Generally, it is not correct, for any union leader to be feeding fat on his members that is not correct. As for me, I’m not a rich man; I lived on the allowance that is given to me. You know when you distance yourself from the former position and your present position as a labour leader, for those your friends who are close to you before, maybe they’ve not been seeing you to go to beer parlour to drink beer where you used to drink Oguro or palm wine before, so if you are not joining them that is where the envy comes from. They say he is now a big man, but it is not like that, it is because of the responsibility you have been saddled with and that is the reason why somebody has to make sure he does the work that will be in the best interest of the workers.
I don’t think it will be correct for anyone to apportion blame that to the leadership that we were bribed. You know, that is character assassination for anybody to have that in mind because the negotiation was very transparent and open. We were always briefing our members and telling them where we are going and what the government offered even before we got to the end of implementation, the members were briefed. The one of dockworkers was the one that created a lot of problems when the government gave =N=40,000 to them as their severance package. Even before they (government) offered that =N=40,000, the government made it clear that they have no obligation to pay any dockworker any money, that the dockworkers are not under their employment. We came back to brief them as a result of the struggle of the unions within the maritime sector, the government had to reverse itself by saying okay, we will give =N=200,000, from =N=40,000 to =N=200,000. I don’t know how that is a betrayal, where is the bribe they gave to us? And even with the =N= 200,000, we made it clear that it is not going enough, they now said that after collecting this money, and at least not less than 50 per cent of the dockworkers will be employed. That’s what they said so, we went into agreement and they started implementing, how can they say we betray them, it’s not correct. No matter what happen in the world or to any body, a good name is better than riches so as I have led this union, lead the workers, I think I prefer my good name than that riches people think that we are going there to see. Which government is going to give you money? Is it government of Obasanjo? He was the one that brought EFCC. If we have been given money, by now we will be talking a lot of things. They would have brought it out. I tell you there’s no truth there, it’s not correct and if anybody have that in mind, it’s an erroneous believe, and I want to clear it that there is nothing like that.
Are you satisfied with the way port reform has turned out?
What they have done today, is very bad and that is that it is not what we expected from the federal government. Let me start from there because they are the owner of the port, but you don’t concession your port to inflict hardship on the citizen of that country. The terminal operators have today derailed from what they told government that as soon as they come, the port is going to be better. They have taken over the terminals for about three years and I want to tell you now that there is nothing on the ground. They promised that as soon as the terminals are given to them, they are going to invest in the port by bringing equipment and machineries for operations. They said that the Nigerian Ports Authority that was handling operation before is operating with obsolete equipment. But today, it is the same obsolete equipment that they are managing, they did not even refurbish. They‘ve not done anything, they also said the government should forget about employment that they are also going to employ Nigerians for the business, the then minister made it clear there is going to be more employment. From labour point of view, it is very clear that these guys (terminal operators) have not employed anybody. Rather what they do now is like slave labour, they even went as far as saying that there is no need to have any union in their areas of operations so that nobody can challenge them. In the terminal where we had more than 2,500 dockworkers working before they came in to take over, today we now have about 250. Is that the employment they are talking about, the answer is no. They’ve not been able to fulfil the promises they made and now what are the prices of goods. Now, I am asking you, you can go to the market and find out what is now the price. Prior to the time they took over this port, how much were we buying a bag of cement? Is that the benefit or is that the reason why the government gave the ports to them. The imported items that are carried into this country, including cars, how much were we buying them and how much are we buying them now? How can you now as a terminal operator go and increase tariffs, if you increase tariffs, that mean you want to finish the whole country by inflation? So the benefit of Nigeria that they have derived on port concession is zero, nothing. For me and the union, we are just watching. When the port was divided into two illegally, this great union, decided to cry to the federal government, told them that the port Act never give power to any management or arm of government to break the port, into two or three, having the same management. Economically it is wrong, and we sent a memo to Mr. President. I am not saying that it’s only the union that did it. NPA is back, the Nigerian Ports Authority today has one Managing Director, every port manager that are there have the power to manage their ports, were they not the one managing it before? What is there is that if they know that this thing should continue, let them provide a law, and in providing that law every stakeholder, every Nigerian must be able to contribute, because this is the port that feed the whole nation, this is the gateway to the nation” economy. Let me tell you, the unions have said it, am still repeating it, if care is not taken; this is going to be the gateway to the devil to come into this country. This place is going to be the gateway to the devil and not the gateway to the nation’s economy anymore, because when you are talking about, security, it is very clear, you don’t compromise. Security of the nation is not supposed to be compromised; you don’t look at faces of people to say if I do this, I will offend that that is not security, that’s why we have government. When there is Nigeria you can, have Nigerian Ports Authority. This country must have to be protected. Whatever it will take the federal government to protect this nation, they should do it.
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