John Ogbe is a union leader at the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN). In this interview with OLUSEGUN KOIKI, Ogbe, who is vying for the position of President in the Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN), speaks on the planned concessioning of some airports by the Federal Government, the previous challenges of the exercise and his plans for workers’ welfare if voted into office. Excerpts.

The Federal Government has resolved to concession some major airports in the country despite the crisis it generated the last time. As a union leader, what is your view about the exercise?
In the last eight years or so, our position as unions was a firm no to concessions, but we have realised that concessions are not going away. One of the major reasons is that the government doesn’t seem to have the funds to transform airports. Let me tell you, aviation standards are global; there are no local standards in the aviation industry. You will agree with me that our airports are not operating to the expected standards and the government is saying it doesn’t have the resources to pump into this sector.

The fact is that the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is just the right way to go for everyone, but we are firmly behind our workers on the welfare and labour issues and all these must be resolved.

In recent days, a lot has been said about the concessioning of Enugu, Ibadan, Minna and even Port Harcourt airports. The unions at the level of Joint Action Congress (JAC) have dropped a common position on staff welfare issues. Once these issues are resolved, we won’t have a problem with the government.

Can you expatiate more on some of these issues and the government’s position on them?
The issues are not far-fetched; for instance, in the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), we have three big airports – Lagos, Abuja and Kano, which are feeding the other airports. In the contractual agreement of FAAN’s staff, you are employed as a staff member of the authority, not as a staff member of Enugu, Kano, Katsina or even Lagos airports. You can be in Lagos today and be moved to Enugu tomorrow.

All the assets and liabilities are in a pool for sharing. Someone in Enugu is still drawing his pension from Lagos and vice versa. If the government is saying it wants to concession Enugu Airport, for instance, some pensions and liabilities are attached to these airports. One of our demands is that the government should resolve our pension problem.

As it stands, FAAN is practising two pension schemes – the defined benefit scheme and the contributory pension scheme. Before the migration of the staff to Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), FAAN did not have the funds at that time to move all its workers. So, we are in valuation, practising the two schemes. Right now, there are people on the other side who are still receiving a pension to date and there are also some staff on the contributory pension scheme.

The workers are telling the government to sever everyone and let the concessionaire take over the whole airport. Part of our demands to the government is cluster concession, in which a concessionaire of any of the big airports would pick other small airports within the region. Someone who takes Lagos will add Ilorin, Ibadan, and Akure to it, while the winner of Abuja airport will add Minna, Makurdi and Jos to it and so on. This will enable the capturing of the liabilities and assets of the airports and nobody will be left out.

Also, the third one is the actual valuation, which is about N1.21 billion for the entire FAAN workforce. So, we are saying let the value of that money be on the ground so that those who want to continue to be with FAAN can continue and anyone who wants to go can go. So far, the government is sincere with its engagements with stakeholders and the unions.

How can the pitfalls in concession agreements be totally resolved?
The good side of this era is that we have the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), which is saddled with the responsibility of midwifing the end-to-end concession process. In the past, we didn’t have an ICRC, but with the coming onboard of the commission, such controversies of the past have been nipped in the bud.

Another issue is good faith. In Nigeria, there are lots of concessions that have gone bad, even beyond the aviation industry and this is mostly because they were skewed against the people and no goodwill. So, they were bound to fail but because they failed, it doesn’t mean we cannot get it right again. The creation of ICRC has addressed some of those challenges.

Why are you vying for ATSSSAN presidency?
The decision to contest for the presidency of ATSSSAN came after I discovered that a lot of things were not going right with our current association. This is due to the feedback that I received from a lot of our members. The vibe has actually gone down. Part of what is driving me is to reposition our union. The current administration in ATSSSAN has done its bit and we have the responsibility to improve on whatever they have done.

So, the charge is to reposition our union to face the modern challenges of unionism. We are trying to move out of the era of banging of tables, running unionism on the streets, to a more collaborative engagement. We want to engage more and collaborate with organisations to resolve most of the contentious issues, like concessions and others.

If elected as the next ATSSSAN president, how do you intend to engage the government, others?
As unions, we don’t just call the shots because we are organised labour. You can even go into lobbying and advocacy when you want to achieve a particular goal. The best way to go around some issues is to soften the ground, make yourself available and come up with facts and figures.

What is obvious in today’s unionism is a knowledge gap and a lack of capacity. I intend to build capacity as a union leader so that the union leaders, too, will be more knowledgeable in their engagements with the government and organisations. This would be done across the branches of ATSSSAN.

Do you have plans for members who work in private organisations in the ecosystem?
In my first month in office, I will move around all the organisations that we have our members in. In ATSSSAN, as we speak, we have 16 organisations where we have our members and out of this, we have about 11 private organisations, while the government is about five agencies.
One of the recommendations of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is that an employer is to provide the tools and a comfortable working environment for its workers. These are the issues I intend to take up with the various managements where we have our members. Most of the issues with these private sectors revolve around Conditions of Service (CoS). We also intend to support these organisations to succeed; once they succeed, we will be able to come to the table to ask for more for our members.