By Akanimo Sampson
Prospects of Nigeria’s federal legislators meeting the yearnings of the electorate on affordable housing are not appearing bright at the moment.
Yet, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, is saying that the House will be working in tandem with the yearnings and aspirations of the citizenry.
Affordable housing is a major source of worry for millions of the citizenry. Nigeria’s housing deficit at the moment has shot up from 17 million to 22 million. This figure was made public by the Managing Director of Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Ahmed Dangiwa.
While launching the national affordable housing delivery programme in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital in October 2018, Dangiwa, put the country’s present housing deficit at 22 million, contrary to previous statistics of 17 million.
How the federal lawmakers will respond to this challenge will be seen in the days ahead. However, Gbajabiamila also assured that the House under his watch will not do anything to hurt Nigerian workers.
Gbajabiamila was speaking during a meeting with a delegation from the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) led by NLC President, Ayuba Wabba on Tuesday in Abuja.
In another engagement while unveiling the maiden calendar of the House of Reps Press Corps same day, he s counseled journalists to always uphold professionalism and objectivity in their reportage, adding that he believed journalists have a lot to offer in Nigeria’s democratic journey.
“Each time I have the opportunity to talk to you, I always tell you, we should work and continue to hold our feet to the fire and that’s your job. You must do that but do it with a little bit of responsibility after investigation.
“Let the Press Corps of the House of Representatives be different from any other Press Corps you can imagine. Different not just in the sense that you carry out your journalistic responsibility objectively and professionally; you have been doing that so far, but we need to cross that Rubicon with a little bit more and we will get to the promised land.”
He said the 9th National Assembly came at an unprecedented time and has been through a long tough road with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So, it is saddled with a lot of responsibilities like no other Assembly has ever been saddled with. But I’m glad that with your support and cooperation, we are trying our best to meet these responsibilities and these challenges as best as we can.
“There are still going to be challenges ahead and by God’s grace, we will meet them. We will continue with our symbiotic relationship and I hope that by the time we are done, this 9th Assembly and this 9th House Press Corps will be remembered for good.”
He commended the leadership of the press corps for coming up with the maiden calendar, saying it is a landmark achievement.
In a remark, Chairman of the House Committee on Welfare and Services, Wale Raji, said the Legislature recognized the importance of the press in covering its activities.
He said the work of building a nation is a partnership among all stakeholders, journalists inclusive, urging them to ensure that they promote democratic tenets in their reportage.
Chairperson of the press corps, Mrs Grace Ike, thanked the Speaker for unveiling the calendar, which she said was to document some major activities of the 9th House.
In the mean time, the Speaker called on the organised labour to use advocacy and lobbying as tools to register its disagreement with legislative decisions and actions.
Gbajabiamila said those were the most potent tools deployed by labour in advanced democracies to score high points as against street protests or the casting of aspersions on members of the legislature.
He said the dust being raised by the Minimum Wage Bill could be addressed successfully during the public hearing, where all stakeholders, including labour unions, would have the opportunity to kick against the draft legislation.
“The fact is that I’m a labour friendly Speaker, and I represent a labour friendly House. I want us to agree, first of all, that whatever was debated on the issue of minimum wage, the contributions by each member, were well-intended.
“When we begin to castigate members like that, it doesn’t pay us. No member will come up with something that he knows will be against the people. I want to tell you that we will do what we ought to do. You know me, and you know some of our members. If this hurts the Nigerian people, we’ll do the right thing”, he said.
The delegation paid a courtesy visit to the Speaker over the proposed bill to transfer the National Minimum Wage from the Exclusive-Legislative List to the Concurrent List.
The bill, initiated in the House, had already passed second reading.
On Wednesday last week, the labour leadership led workers on a protest match to the National Assembly, demanding the withdrawal of the Bill on the grounds that it would “enslave” workers and erode the gains achieved in the over 40 years of wage negotiations in Nigeria.
However, meeting with the labour delegation on Tuesday, Gbajabiamila reassured workers that the House would never be anti-people, but would always take decisions to serve the best interests of all Nigerians.
He explained that the proponents of the bill were also concerned about the welfare of workers and sought how to resolve the age-long problem of irregular or non-payment of salaries by many states in the country.
Gbajabiamila informed the delegation that the fact of a bill being debated on the floor did not mean that the Legislature would pass it without “fully taking into account, the totality of the merits and demerits of the bill.”
While noting that where the demerits weighed heavily against a bill, the House had the only option of stopping such a bill, he said he had expected labour to deploy advocacy in the media or lobbying through public hearing on the bill to register its disagreement as against casting aspersions on the image of lawmakers.
“In arresting a piece of legislation, because are talking democracy here, you can do it through advocacy; you can do it at the public hearing. I had a bill as the Speaker of the House that suffered the same fate – the Infectious Diseases Bill.
‘’It went through a public hearing and now we have removed some things from the bill; we listened to Nigerians and now you won’t find some of those things anymore. I would have loved a situation where you made your case at the public hearing or through advocacy in the media”, Gbajabiamila said.
He added that the Minimum Wage Bill, being a constitutional amendment bill, will take a very long journey through the House, the public hearing, the Senate and the State Houses of Assembly before eventually making its way to the Presidency for possible assent by Mr President.
Gbajabiamila assured the delegation that at whatever point it became clear that the bill did not receive the support of the majority of lawmakers and Nigerians, it would “definitely” be stood down.
He appealed to the labour leadership to shelve its plan for further street protests or calling out workers to embark on industrial action.
Speaking earlier, Wabba told Gbajabiamila that NLC and TUC leaderships started mobilising workers against the bill because they believed it would erode the over 40 years of progress made in minimum wage negotiations in the country.
He said if allowed to pass, the bill would ridicule Nigeria before the international community, being a signatory to Convention 26 of the International Labour Organisation on wage issues.
The NLC President argued that minimum wage was a standard embraced by most countries as the minimum take-home-pay for a worker.
He noted that the minimum wage was always determined by the national parliament, but employers at the sub-national levels were free to negotiate with their workers to pay higher, according to the resources available to them.
Wabba maintained labour’s position that the problem was not the inability of states to pay the minimum wage, but a case of “misplaced priorities.”
