About 11,000 workers of the Nigerian Railway Corporation commenced a three-day warning strike on Thursday, grounding operations at all rail stations across the country.
The NRC employees under the aegis of the Nigerian Union of Railway Workers made good their threat when they said on Wednesday that they would halt all train operations nationwide including services on the popular Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna, and Warri-Itakpe routes from Thursday.
Other notable routes affected by the industrial action included Lagos-Kano, Kano-Unguru and Aba-Port Harcourt, with thousands of railway passengers stranded at stations across the country while about N90m revenue was estimated to be lost to the three-day strike.
The warning strike was suspended on Friday.
President, Nigeria Union of Railway workers, Innocent Ajiji, said the strike was suspended after some resolutions were reached between the Nigeria Union of Railway men and officials of the Federal Ministry of Transportation.
“We have suspended the strike after reaching various agreements with officials of the Transportation Ministry and we have told our members to resume work,” Ajiji said.
Last week, the NUR, an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress, had threatened to embark on the three-day nationwide warning strike from November 18 to November 20, 2021 to press home their demands for improved welfare.
In a bid to avert the strike, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, held a meeting penultimate Saturday in Lagos with the union, but it was gathered that the meeting ended in a deadlock.
It was reported that government officials looked for the railway union leaders on Wednesday to serve a court injunction on the NUR not to begin the strike, but this was unsuccessful as key union officials went underground for the most part of the day.
The union leaders argued that a court injunction was not the solution against the planned strike.
We agree with them absolutely on this.
It is an irony that where about 2000 employees of the NRC were said to have dumped the corporation over poor salary structure and wages paid to them by the FMoT, the government was still threatening these workers on starving wages with court actions.
“Nigerian railway workers deserve improvement in their salary and condition of service. This will serve as motivation for them to make careful and judicious use of the infrastructural investment and repositioning efforts of the federal government in the sector
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Ajiji had earlier said that from 2011 till date, over 2,000 of the workers employed by the NRC have left the Corporation.
According to him, the Corporation has the worst salary structure among agencies in the FMoT. He revealed that a train pilot earns less than N30, 000 monthly.
The NUR President General said, “The pilots who man and drive all our standard gauge trains, be it Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna and Warri-Itakpe, are all poorly remunerated. Even the ones that drive cargo trains out of our ports, they all earn below N30, 000. Are we not toying with danger? When the people that we entrust to carry passengers and cargoes on our standard gauge trains are not well motivated, can something bad not happen along such voyages?
“Most pilots earn around N20, 000 that is when you deduct all the necessary fees like union fees, health fees and other fees usually deducted at source, then most of them are left with something just above N20, 000. These are the same set of people we entrust with containers out of the ports.
“These are the same set of people that we entrust with the lives of passengers along the Lagos-Ibadan, Abuja-Kaduna and Warri-Itakpe passenger train services. Are we not playing with fire in this country?
“If not that our members are well cultured and well trained, something bad could have happened with those cargoes that are being moved out of the ports via rail every day. We are talking of containers that have imported items worth millions of Naira inside them. Yet, our government does not see anything wrong in ensuring that the people that move these cargoes are well remunerated.
“Aside the containers or the wagons, the locomotive engine itself is worth around N600 million. If we add the value of each container that a locomotive carries, 19 containers when it is 40 feet and 38 containers when it is 20 feet, then the value of one single trip out of the ports is above N1 billion. Yet, we employ a pilot who earns below N30, 000 to drive these trains. Is that not ridiculous? It’s only in this country that such things happen,” he lamented.
It is unfortunate that many railway workers who couldn’t continue to bear with the starving wages were said to have left en masse for greener pastures elsewhere, depriving the NRC the much needed man-power to improve its operations.
The salaries earned by railway workers as at today are the poorest when compared to other agencies under the FMoT or even when compared to other ministries of government.
Many professionals who were employed and could have helped in improving the rail sector have left because of the starving wages given to railway workers.
Between 2011 and 2021, the NRC reportedly did about three to four rounds of recruitments, bringing in about 2,500 people to come and work in the Corporation but as of today, the NRC does not have up to 500 of the 2,500 people employed.
Many of them were said to have left because they couldn’t cope with the starving wages being paid.
With the departure of these good hands, the NRC has lost human elements that could have helped in driving the sector forward.
There is no doubt that the two-day strike by the railway workers had a caused a drop in revenue for the sector, the very reason why the government engaged them in a dialogue on Friday.
Following the connection of the Lagos ports to the standard gauge rail project in February 2021, more cargoes have left the ports by rail compared to previous years where every cargo left by road.
This movement of cargoes in and out of the ports by rail has reduced the pressure on Nigerian bad roads.
Yet, it is painful that the human element involved in the rail evacuation of cargoes has continued to earn starving wages for moving millions of tonnes of cargoes out of the ports.
The pilots who drive these locomotives have remained underpaid.
This is an example of Kobo wise, Naira foolish, on the side of the concerned authorities.
As part of its railway sector intervention, the federal government must look into this unfortunate development.
The government should swiftly respond to the welfare of the railway workers and avoid another strike in that sector.
Nigerian railway workers deserve improvement in their salary and condition of service. This will serve as motivation for them to make careful and judicious use of the infrastructural investment and repositioning efforts of the federal government in the sector.
