If Comrade Oshiomhole’s  pedigree is anything to go by, Edo State is indeed lucky to have such a man elected as governor.

Though he came into national limelight as the Deputy President of NLC during the struggle to revalidate the annulled June 12 1993 presidential election won by late MKO Abiola, where he led a few others in the hierarchy of NLC to pitch tent with pro-democracy groups as opposed to other leaders of congress, but his doggedness and struggles to improve the living conditions of Nigerian masses, became an incurable disease during his eight-year tenure as the fourth President of NLC.

Gov. Oshiomhole delivering his maiden speech

During the several anti-fuel price hike national strikes and mass protests across the country, even when others around him were tired, Comrade Oshiomhole never got tired but always provided the needed leadership for others to follow. At the close of each strike and protest day, he would be the last to retire to bed after several meetings with colleagues to appraise the day’s jobs and strategise for the next day.

In the morning, he would be the first to rise for the day’s assignment.  In fact, at the tick of the last anti-fuel price hike protest in 2005, Comrade Oshiomhole led thousands of workers and other Nigerians on a protest march from the gate of the National Stadium Surulere in Lagos, to Alausa, the seat of Lagos state government to deliver a protest letter to Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Even when other younger leaders of the Labour and Civil Society Coalition, LASCO, used their cars and rode on Okada, he trekked all through and was busy addressing Nigerians at one point or the other. Does Comrade Oshiomhole know that his moves to change the environment around him for better is driving people nut?

Hear his remarks at the just concluded textile union delegates conference in Abuja: “I want to salute the staff of NLC, the officials who worked and the General Secretary. Obviously I was a very hard driver and I remain a rugged driver.

I have very little patience. When you look at the task, you will know that the time for patience is so little. That is not my fault because the little time I have and the amount of work that we have to do, made me to be a ruthless driver. But the intentions were noble.

I want to assure you that I am indebted to all of you including those who think I do not like them. Everything that I have gained in my political struggle, the unanimity in which Edo people, the determination that they have demonstrated is not because of my size. It is because of the collective contributions that we made together at the NLC.”

Venturing into politics

Unlike the typical Nigerian politicians who will claim that their people who they are not in touch with has asked them to seek elective position, long before Comrade Oshiomhole indicated his interest to contest for Edo State governorship election, there had been open calls by many Nigerians from all parts of the country for him to seek elective position in order to deploy his talent and pro-people ideology towards salvaging Nigeria from the abysmal poverty and underdevelopment that successive leaders have imposed on the nation.

As early as 2005, concerned citizens of Edo State, who had watched helplessly the squandering and retrogression of the state openly imploring Comrade Oshiomhole to come back home and save his state from becoming a failed state, Comrade had told and has to continued to tell people around him that he is Edo by birth but a Nigerian citizen who believes that the development of Nigeria is the development of component states, Edo inclusive.

Months before he officially declared his intention to serve the people of Edo State as governor, Comrade Oshiomhole once told this writer that the pressures on him to seek a national role as against a state role, were as much as those beckoning on him to come home and turn his state from backwardness to a state to be reckoned with in the comity of states in Nigeria.

In fact, entry into the governorship race in Edo State unsettled the political equation in the state. But to those who believe in Comrade Oshiomhole, charity must begin at home.

And when he eventually declared to run for the governorship of Edo State, he made a promise to not only eradicate poverty in the state, but also, restore the hope of Nigerians in general that progressive governance is possible in this part of the world.

Throughout his campaigns ahead of the April 2007 election, even those who were in doubt that the Edo people wanted former NLC President to lead them, became convinced. This was further confirmed by the violence that engulfed the state after Prof Oserheimen-Aigberadion Osunbor was declared winner of the polls. 

He was subsequently arrested on the 16th of April and later released after which he headed for the tribunal.

The crowd Comrade Oshiomhole pulled each time he went for the sittings in Benin, also testified to the fact that the people clearly voted for him.

Before the verdict of Election Petition Tribunal declaring him winner, Comrade Oshiomhole had on several occasions made it clear that the people of Edo State voted for a change from “business as usual”.

Hear him: “But for the rest of Nigerians who were told officially that the elections were held on the 14th of April, 2007 and in Edo State, that mandate was stolen from me and awarded to Osunbor, I have no problem. I think they have the burden of guilty conscience.

It is bad for you to enter into somebody’s home and steal a property that does not belong to you, but it is worse when you try to undermine the will of a whole people, and yet, they are the very people you want to govern. I think for me, I am the happiest of them all because I am walking freely on the street, I go everywhere, people are praying for me; men and women of God, old and young.

So, I have no problem but I know the other camp has a lot of problem, that is the burden now, so they rather than me have the burden of coping. We have tried to do two things; first is trying to reach the people to thank them for the confidence and support.

The people have paid a huge price but they are not deterred and we have also had to assure them that we are doing something so they don’t think we can give up because this is a country where people sponsor rumours and all kinds of stories.

I am quite happy that we are doing everything we can to ensure that the thief never have peace of mind and I know they will never have it because they murdered sleep.”

Just few weeks ago, speaking at a public forum in Benin City, Comrade Oshiomhole asked Nigerians to pray for him  because he had been battling against sharks.

According to him, I ask you to remember me in your prayers. We have shown that it is not going to be easy again for people to simply do the thing and go and sleep. They have murdered sleep. That is why last week they said I was harassing Osunbor.

I say his conscience is harassing him and the people will continue to harass him until he hands over the stolen property and I have no apology. So, I ask you to pray for me because I am like a little fish in an ocean in which you have big, big sharks which have been feeding on the little fishes. They thought I was one of those they would easily swallow.

But so far, God has helped me that this sharks are unable to find me. The more they open their mouth, they just see every other thing except me. I believe God is at work. But my case is your case that if Oshiomhole from a little village that is not even the map can come a village to work in a textile factory, thereafter go into unionism and risking my job, becoming the NLC president, if God completes the story by making me governor, it means there is nobody in Nigeria who cannot be.

The message I want to put across is that Nigeria should be a land of opportunities for any decent person regardless of economic circumstances of your parents to grow up and become a leader if that is what God has destined you to be. So, it is not my battle, it our battle.”

And on Tuesday, November 11, at mid day, the Appeal Court, affirmed the earlier judgment of the Election Petition Tribunal, that Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, is the authentic winner of the April 14, 2007 gubernatorial election of Edo State.

His early life

Born on April 4, 1953, Comrade  Oshiomhole hails from Iyamoh in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State. Like most people of his generation, the drive for survival took him  to the city where at a very young age, he came to work at Arewa Textiles, Kaduna, the then capital of the Northern region.

Being very young and his little frame put him at a disadvantage of corporate oppression and bullying from colleagues made life a little bit difficult. Comrade Oshiomhole said, these experiences, rather than cow him, toughened him and in time, he found himself speaking out when his colleagues would rather keep mute and suffer in silence.

His protests were not lost on his colleagues and barely two years in the factory, he was made the Branch Secretary of the Local Union. Earning workers' confidence, he was made the State Secretary of the Workers Union  In quick succession, he became the Assistant National Secretary, National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Deputy National Secretary and General Secretary of the Union, the very peak .

Friends and critics wondered how he did it but the secret still remains that Oshiomhole is a ruthless driver and a ruthless rewarder with an eye for quality and detail. He realised early in life that the politics and economics of labour would change dramatically with time and any union leader who hoped to be relevant would have to fortify himself with education.

He took his own advice in 1977 by enrolling at the famous Rusking College, Oxford, United Kingdom, majoring in Labour Economics and Industrial Relations. Oshimhole won the best overseas student award.

Ten years later,1987 precisely, he was at the prestigious National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, where he earned for himself an mni which some Nigerians fondly call ‘mafia nigeria incorporated’.

In between and after, Oshiomhole participated in a series of national and international courses on Labour and industrial relations. He was ready for future challenges.

In the late 80’s, he made his move, emerging as Deputy President of the NLC and Chairman, Economic and Educational Committee of NLC from 1988 to 1994. He led the NLC team on a number of negotiations with the Federal Government.

The military seizure of the movement and the deliberate making of laws to oust the eligibility of Comrade Oshiomhole and his likes created both a lull and distraction. However, this was to change with the coming to power of General Abdulsalami Abubakar (Rtd) who created a level playing field for all contestants to the presidency of the congress.

In January 1999, Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole became the fourth President of NLC after a landslide victory at the polls. Since then, he has not only touched the lives of workers and other Nigerians, he indeed has helped in shaping the history and destiny of Nigeria through popular contributions, interventions and actions, thus justifying the assertion in many quarters that Comrade Oshiomhole indeed is the main issue in national discourse.

In the fullness of time these popular struggles will be chronicled but worth mentioning here are the 2000 to 2005 massive civil protests against arbitrary increases in prices of petroleum products, which he led. This earned him the Man of the year award in the year 2000 by The Punch Newspaper and other national papers had since honoured him with same award.

Consequently, hundreds of communities and organisations have approached him with offers of chieftaincy and professional titles which he politely turns down with one or two exceptions, owing to reasons well beyond his control like that of the Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, Edo State, which honoured him on April 29, 2006, with a Doctorate degree in Law. As a true Comrade, he has insisted that he be addressed as Comrade and not with the Doctorate title.

Comrade Oshiomhole has served the nation in various capacities, but worth mentioning are the following: He was Member, Salaries and Wages Commission (1991_1994); Member, Vision 2010 Committee (1996 _ 1997 ); Member, National Council of Nigeria Vision (1997 _ 2005 ); Member, Constitutional Debate Co_ordinating Committee; Member, National Anti_ AIDS Campaign (2001_ 2002 ); Chairman, Board of Directors, Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (2000 _ 2005 ).
 

At the international level, he has been president of the Organisation of trade Unions of West Africa (OTUWA ) from 2000 to 2007; Member of the Executive Board of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions ( ICFTU ) from 2000 to 2007; Member of the Executive Board of the International Confederation of Trade Unions African Regional Organisation (ICFTU_AFRO ) from 2001 to 2007 and also Member of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation ( ILO ), from June 2002 to 2008.

In 2005, Comrade Oshiomhole was the only labour leader from  Africa invited to No 10, Downing street, by British Prime Minister to discuss issues  affecting development in Africa. He had earlier on delivered a paper at the World Economic Summit in London.

This is why Comrade Lanre Banjo, who contested the governorship elections on the platform of the NCP in Ogun State said “Once again, the Justices of the Tribunal and the Appeal Court have done this nation proud by crossing a Rubicon that was considered impassable almost imaginable in the county that General Olusegun Obasanjo almost strangled to death through his do or die election affair.

I express utmost gratitude to all the Justices who shunned money, considered the lives of their children and put the national interest foremost in their hearts.”

Banjo, who is resident in the United States of America, Washington, D.C. and also a friend of Oshiohmole explained that “Comrade Adams Oshiohmole sweated for this victory and of course, providence was on hand to give history a gentle push to disgrace those who planned that PDP would rule Nigeria for 60 years. He therefore deserves to be congratulated.”

“Oshiohmole”, he said, “should remember that he represents hope for teeming majority of the poor, oppressed, cheated, and the vulnerable.  He therefore must dare to perform to give succor to the pains of the masses. 

He must review the treasury of Benin to determine if Oshiohmole paid the N50 million to the purse of the PDP and prosecute him.  He does not need the EFCC to do this."
For the former labour leader, his story can be best captured in the words Williams Shakespeare, “he came, he saw and he conquered”.

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