This is the twelfth edition of the serial on OWEI LAKEMFA’s latest work: “One hundred years of trade unionism in Nigeria”. The eleventh part was published yesterday.

WITH these objectives in mind, the Federal Military Government has decided on a new National Labour Policy which will involve limited government intervention in certain areas of labour activity in order to ensure industrial peace, progress and harmony.

The Federal Military Government does not believe in politicizing the trade union movement. On the other hand, the union activity especially at the central level is so important in our economic and social life that Government has of necessity to be involved to some extent”.

The regime had merely given hints about its intentions and had not come out to openly oppose the unity of workers. However, on the eve of the December 18, 1975 NLC inaugural conference, the regime clamped down on Labour leaders carting all those they found into detention. Despite this, the next day the City Hall, Lagos venue of the inaugural Conference was filled to capacity.

The junta had decided to boycott the occasion. But with the failure of its strategy of stopping the inauguration, it thought of new tactics. Overnight it changed its mind about attending.Wahab Goodluck, the President of the NLC related what happened before the conference. “A few days to the actual launching of the NLC, a few top leaders of our Congress approached the Federal Commissioner for Labour, Major General Henry Adefowope in person to confinn acceptance of an earlier invitation to him to attend and address the conference.

Ideological warfare

There and then, he expressed his inability to attend. But on the day of the opening of the NLC conference, a message was received barely ten minutes to the opening time that the Commissioner indicated that he was to address the opening session.”

Without ceremonies and with little courtesies Adefowope read his address in which he accused the Labour Movement of allowing two decades of “disunity and ideological warfare,” and harbouring “ill-informed and ill-motivated persons masquerading as trade union leaders. He also claimed that trade union accounts were not being properly audited and that the Government had been “subjected to irresponsible criticism” for its ‘new’ Labour Policy.

After this preamble, Adefowope meandered to the regime’s main motives. First he claimed that the regime had decided to respond “to legitimate demands made on Government to undertake an exercise similar to that which has recently been completed in the public services of the country,”  in the Labour Movement. He argued that ” …The Federal Military Government is justified to institute such an inquiry since trade unions by virtue of their privileged position under the law, are public institutions and the public interest is deeply involved in their operation, administration and financing.”

He laboured to add that “Trade unions enjoy a unique privilege of protection under the law in circumstances in which other pressure groups in society; such as political parties have been banned following the change of government in 1975.” In his last sentence, General Adefowope wished the new NLC “every success and prosperity in the years ahead.”

After Adefowope delivered the junta’s message, the conference went on, it was as if there had been a rude intervention, now it was necessary to proceed. On May 21, 1976, Adefowope called a press conference on “The Affairs of the Nigeria Labour Congress” and announced that:

(i)  “The Federal Military Government does not intend to accord registration to the Nigeria Labour Congress, as at present constituted, under the Trade Unions Decree No. 31 of 1973 …”

(ii)  The Government has decided to appoint an Administrator, who will be assisted by a committee of trade unionists selected on their own merits to coordinate and administer the affairs of all Registered Unions.

(iii) The Administrator shall act as a trustee for the protection and administration of the funds and properties of the four former central labour organisations until a general delegates’ conference of all the affiliates of these organisations is convened for the purpose of ratifying the constitution of a new central trade union body and electing a new leadership. A decree providing for these measures will shortly be promulgated by the Government”.

In a move which remains unprecedented in the colonial and post colonial history of Nigeria, Adefowope went abroad to demonise the Labour leaders in the country which included nationalists and patriots like Michael Imoudu, Wahab Goodluck, Haroon Adebola and Jackson Udofot Akpan.  At the International Labour Organisation (ILO) 63rd session in Geneva on June 9, 11977, Adefowope as Nigeria’s Minister of Labour told the world:

“We in Nigeria today have embarked upon a programme that will ensure the emergence of ‘bona fide’ trade union organisations in the country to cater for the interest of our working classes in the society and to cooperate with our government in the numerous welfare projects now being undertaken in the country.

Dangerous situation

We had faced in the past a dangerous situation in which disregard for probity and public accountability had characterized the activities of some public institutions, including the trade unions. The present regime in Nigeria will not tolerate indiscipline and is committed to a new trade union structure in the country which will ensure that workers can elect their leaders in accordance with a code of conduct consistent with the government’s overall national programme of enforcing discipline in all facets of public life.

We have, since arrival in Geneva, heard of moves from certain quarters which would want us to continue to tolerate the existence of the dubious and discredited trade union leadership in Nigeria, all in the name of freedom of association and of trade union rights. This we will not do. It is these same quarters which have given encouragement to the irresponsible trade union leadership in our country in previous years. If international solidarity of the world trade union movement will result in the exploitation of the many by a self imposed few, then the aims of the founding fathers of the concept of the workers’ liberation, would have come to nothing”.

At his address to the inaugural conferences of newly restructured industrial unions held from October 31-November 12, 1977, Adefowope sought some reconciliation with the Labour Movement, he even acknowledged the pioneering role of Imoudu whom the military had banned the previous year from trade unionism. He tried to justify the Military’s ban on the NLC and major Labour Leaders by arguing that in any society, “Institutions like leaders grow old and are replaced by new leaders and institutions … The trade unions in Nigeria are a branch of the social tree and not an artificial appendage”.

Uba Ahmed: It was the Worst of Times: Alhaji Uba Ahmed was a trade unionist who in the First Republic was Secretary of the Northern Federation Labour. During the December 1964 general strike when Labour protested against the allegedly rigged general elections, young Ahmed disassociated “northern” workers from the strike. In the Second Republic, he was elected into the Senate and became Secretary of the ruling National Party of Nigeria, NPN. When the military struck on December 31, 1983, Ahmed fled the country and became a fugitive.

When the most rapacious military regime in the country’s history; the Abacha regime came into existence, it appointed Ahmed its Minister of Labour in 1994. He was a nightmare to the Labour Movement.  He saw a traitor in the face of every labour leader that refused to support him. Various ‘security reports’ were written or concocted on Labour leaders. In 1994, the two oil unions; NUPENG and PENGASSAN went on strike for the validation of the June 12, 1993 Presidential elections.  The two unions were proscribed along with the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, which allegedly failed to stop the unions’ strike.

The Labour Ministry under Ahmed imposed sole administrators on the unions and NLC. The NLC’s businesses including the Labour Transport Services, LTS, and finance house were seized and ran aground. Perhaps the most devastating anti-labour piece of legislation in our history was the Trade Unions Decree 4 of 1996 which ousted the  courts jurisdiction from hearing any suit challenging the validity of anything done by the regime on Labour.

Although the decree merged unions, it left out senior staff unions from its schedule thereby technically banning them. But the most controversial aspect, and perhaps the main reason for the decree was the eligibility clause Section 33 (7) which stated that “No person shall be eligible to contest any elective post under the Central Labour Organisation on any trade unions … unless he is a member of the trade unions”.

Elective positions

This was to disqualify full time trade unionists like General Secretaries who are employees of unions, from contesting elective positions in the NLC. Before the decree, the Abacha regime had fixed dates for new NLC elections following the 1994 ban of the NLC Leadership.

But the problem was that regime was not comfortable with the two leading contenders; Paschal Bafyau, the NLC President the regime had removed, and Adams Oshiomhole who was Bafyau’s deputy in the NLC.

The two some were General Secretaries of the Railway and Textile unions respectively, and were under the NLC constitution, eligible to contest. So Decree 4 of 1996 banned candidates like Bafyau and Oshiomhole. In Labour history many the major leaders like Michael Imoudu, Nduka Eze, Gogo Chu Nzeribe Wahab Goodluck, Haroon Adebola and Samuel Udoh Bassey were full time trade unionists.

This decree was followed by the severe repression of trade union activities; workers seminars, workshops and meetings were routinely broken up by armed policemen or armed thugs, Labour leaders were beaten up. Ahmed directly threatened Labour leaders, and on one occasion, physically attacked the then General Secretary of the Senior Staff Consultative Association, SESCAN (now the Trade Union Congress, TUC).

To further strengthen the draconian Decree 4 of 1996, two new Decrees 24 and 26 of 1996 were enacted. The first decree banned the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU; the  Non Academic Staff Union, NASU; the Academic Staff of Polytechnics, ASUP; and the Senior Staff Association of Universities, Teaching Hospitals, Research and Related Institutions.  On the other hand, Decree 26 invested in the Labour Minister, executive, legislative and judicial powers over the Labour Unions and NLC.

Salisu Nuhu Mohammed whom Ahmed appointed in May 1995 as his Personal Assistant described Ahmed in an April 28, 1996 interview in The Guardian as “A consummate politician, very warm and friendly … (but) he is a dyed-in the wool conservative who is unforgiving. He is governed by spontaneity”. When General Sani Abacha passed away, Ahmed’s commission also passed away. The new regime under General Abdulsalami Abubakar scrapped the hated decrees and the NLC was restored back to the workers in September 1998.