Davy Fidel

The Railway workers called off its 3 days warning strike, which lasted from 18-20 November 2021. The action was called by the Nigeria Union of Railway (NUR) to protest the unpaid salaries and allowances of railway workers, among which, includes the “promotion arrears for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021; unpaid monthly salaries of some workers, especially those who entered service in 2019.”

This is with the fact that it had remitted the sum of N1.13 billion to the Federal Government in 2020.

In the signed agreement, workers would enjoy “Insurance cover as train passengers and goods”. That action needed to be taken to draw government action to such a demand, which in itself indicates what is paramount to Capitalism is not the welfare of workers but profit.

As pointed out by Ayo Olurunfemi, National Secretary-General of the NUR. Workers “are human beings and who will do the job, they have invested a lot of money on infrastructures. So, as you are investing in infrastructures, also invest in us that will drive the infrastructures.”

With a population currently at 214 million, mass transportation is important to ease the movement of persons and goods from place to place in a vast territory with a landmass of close 910, 770 km. The fact is that railway lines are still largely restricted to the ones developed by the colonialists running from sources of raw materials to the ports, is a complete indictment on the ruling elites from 1960 till date.

At the very heart of the transportation crisis in the country is the refusal by the ruling elites to invest the needed funds from the wealth of the country into railways linking it with a network of roads both on the land and the waterways all over the country.

But however it is heartwarming that the NUR is regaining its beat, the say union that gave the labour movement Pa Michael Imoudou, the foremost trade unionist in the country, who led workers in Nigeria in a series of actions against the colonialists, with the 1945 General Strike the most memorable.

One cannot but commend the new generation of labour leaders at the NUR, and posit that a lot needs to be done, to regain its lost ground in the labour movement. The fact that the real sector grew by “.93% year-on-year in real terms in Q3 2021” is indicative of what it can contribute to the Nigerian economy.

As part of regaining its lost glory, the NUR must seek to the agenda for the whole transport industry in the country, article what the issues are and seek to the unity of action of all the transport unions, and together be willing to take actions that would bring the necessary pressure to bear to improve the transport sector. As the 3 days warning strikes makes clear, transport workers.

Workers must benefit from their toil both from their direct work and as well as from the wealth and resources of the country, which is why the NUR needs to come out fully against commercialisation and privatisation of the railway sector in the country. It is the workers that would suffer from retrenchment and cut in wages when the workforce is not even enough o meet the current demand of its services. The power sector is an example to refer to here.

As, the NUR beyond the question of enhanced wages, and payment of arrears, must deem it fit to organize against contract staffing, casualization, and unconditional retrenchment of workers. And win at it the NUR must arm workers, with all the necessary trade union education, providing key lessons from history and struggles of workers in another sector in the country and outside, as to how to organise to fight against victimization and attack from the government.

It is alarming that the workforce in Nigeria Railway Corporation is merely 10, 672 despite the huge size and of the sector. The ruling elites are not willing and ready to fully develop it, even when it is capable of providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of Nigerians.

The plan by the Buhari regime to kick off the construction of 1, 402 kilometres of rail from Lagos to Calabar reported being financed by a loan from the London-based Standard Chartered Bank with a figure of between “$11bn out of the US$14.4bn required.” (Vanguard 4/1/2022).

This will no doubt further increase the debt profile of the country, worsening the current budget deficit and increasing the debt servicing that is current in the trillion figure mark yearly.

This dismal state is not just a fact of the railway and transport sector, which is largely dominated by private profiteers, but the same picture of the whole economy. The development of the railway sector is linked to the overall growth of the Nigerian economy, transport and industrialization are dialectically linked.

There cannot be one without the other. So while agreeing that the NUR must put the interest of its workers first, as in agitating for an increase in its workforce, improved working and living conditions, it must however be cognizant of the fact the wellbeing of its workers cannot be separated from the wellbeing of workers in Nigeria.

It must therefore seek to be part of the general struggle of the working masses to improve it lots. The ruling class has proved long enough that they are incapable of rescuing the country or developing any key sector. This is a task for the working class.

To birth a new Nigeria, the very dreams of the founders of the NUR who were at the forefront of the struggle against colonialism. And only the Workers’ government with a Socialist programme, working with a planned economy, would first seek to fully develop the means of production, taking into consideration, all of the existing modern technological possibilities in all sectors of the economy.

When workers and the working masses are directly involved in deciding the policies of how to spend public money, running society, not for the sake to amass wealth and profit but to improve a lot of the working masses will the economy and means of production be developed?

This is not going to come easy, it will first mean that workers independently organise themselves politically, with a party of their own to wrestle power from the Buhari regime or any capitalist succeeding regime.