THE AGONY OF THE NIGERIAN WORKER…suffering in the midst of plenty

THE AGONY OF THE NIGERIAN WORKER…suffering in the midst of plenty.

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking form the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.

.......Martin L. King Junior

When we talk about freedom, certain quarters of the society see freedom as only political for as such they benefit, but individual freedom stems from first being economically free; this economic freedom definitely will guarantee politico-social freedom, which in turn will engender better living standards…access to qualitative education, shelter, mobility and such things that make life worth living for humans.

Today the upper chamber of the Nigerian Federal legislative house have finally but unceremoniously passed the recent minimum wage bill, many today celebrate such as a landmark, (well in a country where legislators are but prebendalists) but they failed to actually find out the true state of the Nigerian worker viz a viz the current living standard occasioned by high cost of living and sporadic inflation which increases geometrically.

No thanks to the senate deputy president who asserted thus “

“today is a happy day because we have shown that we are conscious of the sufferings of our people. This country is rich enough to cater for everybody if we avoid the avarices of some few people”

Because we and them already know that Nigeria is endowed with abundant material and human resources the it is only bad governance and parasitic political office holders that deprive our people of a better living standard.

Nigeria happens to be a state where we import  what we have (petroleum products) and export what we do not have (democracy). We have a decayed system, a state where the economic minister will deplete the national reserve in the face of booming oil price and sales (what will he do when oil prices fall), a country where excess crude oil revenue is shared between the central and subordinate governments instead of saving for the evil days, a state that have failed for decades to build refineries but rather choose to import finish products of resources they have in abundance at extremely high cost. The list is inexhaustible..

The Nigerian worker has nothing to be happy about as the forces of demand and supply are still in existence, after all both federal and state owned universities have increased school fees, where will these workers start from, is it the high cost of building materials fro them to have a roof over their heads or the school fees of their wards that they will pay with N18,000. Thank God its minimum wage, and it will be for possibly the minimum person in the minimum wager home that it will take care of.

The agony of the Nigerian worker is unending expecially in the face of these parasitic governments and their cronies.