ALTHOUGH, Governor Adams Oshiomhole has since Friday, August 5, this year, answered this question in the negative, I have continued to reminisce on the spat between him and the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in the state over the minimum wage package.
What has sustained my interest in the matter, despite the fact that the solidarity strike has since been called off, was the executive rascality that was elevated to the level of art in statecraft in engaging with the workers. In any case, Oshiomhole was quick and smart enough to accuse the labour leaders of being rascally.
In a clearly desperate bid, Oshiomhole had successfully intimidated the labour leaders into surrendering and backing out of the action. That was not surprising. After all, is he not a master of the game of dubiety with which labour unionism has come to be associated? It is a game of putting government on its toes and using the platform of labour to negotiate with the servicing of pecuniary interest as a critical sub-text.
Ordinarily, disputes between governments and the labour forces are supposed to be normal in governance, but the conflict between Edo workers and the government of Oshiomhole, over the exclusion of teachers from the minimum wage package, turned abnormal when the comrade governor resorted to brinkmanship.
Out of needless exasperation, he had played to the gallery concerning his labour background: he boasted to his comrade workers about some of his achievements while in the labour union struggle and how not to engage in disputations with a government run by a fellow comrade.
In the process, Oshiomhole went beyond the verge and took a precipitously reckless plunge into the abyss of politics, taking the labour leaders with him, when he accused them of being complicit in the alleged attempt to politicize the solidarity strike with the teachers.
He had declared that the workers, who had at that point sustained their strike for three days, were being used by the opposition parties in the state; in fact, he accused them of taking "a sub-contract from a political class."
In a fit of anger, laced with indiscretion, he had dismissed the teachers, nay all workers in the state, as inconsequential in next year's governorship election. Contemptuously, he urged them to continue the strike even till July 14, 2012 when the governorship election would be held (The Nation, Saturday, August 6, 2011 at page 6)
His message to the teachers and their sympathizer colleagues in the state employ was unambiguous and can thus be understood in this context: "I do not need your votes in the forthcoming governorship election; you are inconsequential in my re-election bid; and therefore, you can go to hell..."
That was sheer arrogance. It was the height of indiscretion and perpetration of class contempt. Should he not be compelled to make restitution by way of public apology to the respected and long-suffering teachers and workers? If he does not, teachers and workers in Edo State should prove to him that they are also capable of casting their votes for a better alternative-someone who would be responsible, sensitive and responsive to their plights.

Should Oshiomhole be allowed to have his cake and eat it? Having climbed his high horse in utter derision of the teachers and the work force, should he not be wise enough to climb down? But will unbridled arrogance allow him to indulge in such exercise of ancient wisdom?
After all, as some, including this writer, have argued, a popular aphorism that those whom the gods want to destroy, they first make mad would appear to have perfectly resonated in this context; otherwise, he would not have committed the avoidable faux pas.
It should therefore be understandable if the opposition elements are smart enough to harp on this and make it a veritable bugaboo to Oshiomhole and his political camp in the electioneering that would soon crystallize for the governorship contest on July 14, next year.
There is a whole lot of sense in being decorous, moderate and calculative in speech. The strength of a good leader is his ability to listen to divergent views and positions, harvest the best perspectives and harness them in the process of decision-making.
But when a leader jumps into the arena in a bid to prove that his subordinates are small fries when it comes to speech-making in the public or engaging with contending labour issues as Oshiomhole did on August 5, this year, when he met with labour leaders in the State, then it sadly becomes a matter of ego.
And, apparently massaging his own ego, he had told the labour leaders: "...I was discussing with you as a comrade, but you used the world 'battle'. Now I am ready to go into battle. You abused my friendship and compassion. Now, I need to show you that the same teeth with which I used to smile can be used to bite, particularly when you have taken a sub-contract from a political class.
"...For me it is a serious business. I am no more the NLC president, but I appreciate my NLC background. This is why I sit with you in the manner that every governor would not do. If I didn't want to pay, I would not pay. I cannot gang up against labour.
"Not even your rascality will make me misbehave against labour. It is not about you; but what I believe in. I tried my best to do what we agreed to do. The Teachers rather than write to us to draw our attention like the others did, they met and decided to issue an ultimatum to the government.

"Don't abuse the fact of our comradeship.... If you allow yourselves to be pushed by political forces, you will be biting more than you can chew because you know I will be ready to engage any forces. I have engaged them before; they should not hide under the minimum wage.
"Teachers will be dismissed if they violate their contract of employment. I have the will. I am not one of those politicians who will do anything to remain in government. I came into the office with my head high and I am leaving with my head high."
Good talk! But there are questions that Oshiomhole should answer in his mind or in the public, through the media, if he so wishes: what was wrong in the labour leaders' use of the word "battle"? Does it (battle) not mean "conflict", "fight", "encounter", etc?
Was it romance that took place between the government and the teachers when they embarked on an indefinite strike and when labour in the state joined in a solidarity strike for some days to press for teachers' inclusion in the minimum wage package?
What was Oshiomhole's grouse with the word: "battle"? Does he hate it so much because that was what he was involved in against the Federal Government when he was President of the NLC? Has it become a case of someone who killed with the sword forbidding another to hold the sword around him?
Who really was abusing comradeship between Oshiomhole and the Edo labour force? Who was really testing the will of the others? Was it Oshiomhole or the workers? Can Oshiomhole afford to disobey the law by refusing to pay the minimu wage if he does not want to pay and goes away with it? These are issues that are open to further contemplation and interrogation.
Now that the teachers have been forced to return to work, has he implemented the Teachers Salary Scale (TSS) for which they have been advocating and for which reason he excluded them from the minimum wage package? And, again, is there a genuine desire to sincerely implement the minimum wage package in Edo?
Hasn't he further abused the teachers by coming up with a mumbo-jumbo of a payment table that the teachers have found difficult to understand with a higher taxation (pay-as-you-earn) that now hovers around 15 percent? Is what he did not tantamount to using the left hand to collect what his right hand has given as an increment in the salary adjustment gambit (not minimum wage)?
Again, still taking cues from his response to the strike in his state, how would Oshiomhole have reacted, when he was in the saddle as NLC President, to the Federal Government or its agents or assigns, making statements that reeked of intimidation and blackmail against the labour union that he led during government-labour negotiations?
On the issue of probity and accountability, can Oshiomhole walk his talk? Can our patron-saint be really above board and shun desperate political moves (by not doing anything, as he claimed) to remain in government? Having come into government with his head high, as he also claimed, can he, with the manner he has run the state so far, leave government with his head high?
Only time will tell, but what time has already told close watchers of politics in Edo State and Oshiomhole's government is that he has already declared that he does not need the votes of workers, especially teachers in the state in the forthcoming governorship election. And will they vote for him without any solicitations? The teachers, nay the entire work force, will answer this question on July 14, 201
Source: AllAfrica
