By VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
INTEGRITY Group of Industrial Unions, IGIU, yesterday expressed its shock and sadness over the sudden death of former President of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, Comrade Paschal Bafyau, on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, describing him “as one of the most dedicated and accomplished leaders of the labour movement in Nigeria.”

IGIU in a statement by Comrade Peters Adeyemi, in Ibadan, Oyo State, recalled that Bafyau,  as President of the NLC, he deployed his leadership skills to lay a solid foundation for the NLC even  in a period of authoritarian military regime that was determined to tame the activism of Congress and its allies.

Comrade Adayemi who is also the General Secretary of Non-Academic Staff Union Universities, NASU, said “Comrade Bafyau’s NLC led its allies in the student union movement, civil society organisations and the Nigerian masses to challenge the military governments over several unpopular policies that culminated in the struggle for the actualisation of the annulled June 12 elections. It is the activism of this period that led to the proscription of the NLC along with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and Non-Academic Staff Union Universities (NASU) in 1994 by the dictator, General Sani Abacha.

According to him, “Comrade Bafyau sought to build a strong economic foundation for an activist Labour centre. In this regard, Comrade Bafyau will be regarded as towering above all others that held that office before and after him, in terms of vision of where our movement should be in the socio-economic and political dispensation of things.

He not only built the imposing Labour House in the Central Business District of Abuja, which serves as the headquarters of the NLC and Trust Fund Pensions PLC, he got 10% of the Urban Development Bank of Nigeria (UDBN), now The Infrastructural Bank, for the Congress.

He similarly established the Labour Transport Service and the defunct Labour Mortgage Bank as well as the construction of staff quarters in Gwagwalada, Abuja, in his quest to make labour a formidable institution in the country.”