By Funmi Komolafe

Labour Vanguard : John Odah to the best of my knowledge was not a member of NASU. He was general secretary of the NLC.

So, we said fine. If you don’t have problems with NASU why did you set up the reconciliation committee in the first instance? It’s a simple question. They claim they don’t have a problem with NASU but by the time the committee was set up, John Odah was already at the National Industrial Court. So they could not have constituted the reconciliation committee because of him.

The reconciliation committee was constituted because the leaders of NLC knew that it had problems with some unions including NASU. Yet they didn’t have the courtesy of even informing committee members because some of them complained to us that even they who were members of the committee were not informed. They dissolved and that was it. So, if you dissolve the committee without informing us, we just said these guys are not serious with what they are doing. So for now we are out of the NLC. We have not received any counter directive from our members. Our members said we can work with unions of like minds and form another labour centre.

At this stage of our development in the trade union movement, how desirable is another labour centre?

There are two ways to answer this question. As at the time Adams Oshiomhole was leading the NLC, to conceive the idea of forming another labour centre will be like trying to go and  stand in front of  a moving train. If you have a  functional, effective, efficient, dynamic, result-oriented labour centre, it will amount to a wasteful effort to contemplate forming another labour centre but  where a  labour centre which is supposed to protect the rights and priviledges of the Nigerian people has compromised; where it is absolutely clear that those who are leading the movement  have lost ideas, have lost focus, they no longer represent the interest of the people, where there are major struggles affecting the lives of Nigerians, where the movement ought to stand by the Nigerian people and  they decided without any justification to sell-out, there can’t be any other justifiable reason  more than that.

MR ADEYEMI

If you look at NLC today, you will be shocked. If you look at it from that angle yes, a new labour centre  is desirable.

In view of certain developments in the NLC,  especially an out-of-court settlement with John Odah which the NLC leadership used to save its face, how would you assess the current leadership of the NLC?

What I saw was desperation for power. There are two things that can happen. People can desperately look for power because of their selfish interest.

What I saw in the NLC at the time they were performing those acts was the desperation of a group of people who don’t have what it takes to deliver to Nigerian workers but who are anxious to be in power and deliberately anxious to push certain elements out of the place because those elements could create some crisis for them. That’s absolutely what happened.

Some of them never wanted Adeyemi, never wanted John Odah because they know that with John Odah heading the secretariat of the NLC, it  will not be possible for them to manipulate  the secretariat. For a John Odah who knows his left from his right, who is known internationally as a committed unionist, they made up a lot of lies against him, because they wanted a secretariat that they can manipulate.

I said on my honour that any trade union organization, be it at the level of the industrial  union or a labour centre, that doesn’t have a solid secretariat,  it is not going to be able to deliver and that’s  exactly what has happened. They have destroyed the NLC because they wanted to take hold  of the secretariat; they wanted to be in charge.  An elected person cannot necessarily be in charge of the secretariat. What I have seen is hatred for general secretaries because they think that general secretaries have too much power.

But Comrade Oshiomhole was a general secretary…..

The truth of the matter is that those of them trying to inherit the NLC have forgotten that  the foundation of the NLC which they took over was laid by a president who was a general secretary ( Adams Oshiomhole was the general secretary of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers) and I assure you until we return to that, we would just be kidding.

Is there a future for the labour movement in Nigeria given the fact that there seems to be a disconnect between  workers and the leadership of the unions?

I am one  person who has never lost hope. I believe there is a future but what we need  to do … and that is clearly the responsibility of the workers themselves. Any trade union leader who occupies office and refuses to work for the interest of workers, even if it’s me, should be removed. The responsibility for doing that , lies with  workers.

If  you are president or general secretary in  any union including NASU and you fail to understand that your main objective is to improve the welfare and the well-being of workers, to serve them…..   It  is in  this present era of the labour movement that I have seen  those leading the movement as lords over those they are leading. I have seen all sorts of things in this present era where labour leaders go about with escorts. We  have never seen that before. Labour leaders now go around with mobile police, they have one vehicle in front,  they are in the middle, another vehicle behind them. This for us is alien.

For us, a typical trade union leader must be a grassroots person. I don’t stay in my office, I’m always on the road; I’m always prosecuting strikes, I’m always holding meetings with government and employers of labour. That’s why I’m one of the unionists in this country today that you can say is always in touch with members. That is the way  the union should run.  It was the legacy of Adams  in  the textile union that made us say he should be president of the NLC.

Nobody should be president of any labour centre in this country if  has not made his mark in his union because if you have not made your mark in your union, you would not have anything to show at a higher level. We must discourage this idea of the money the union pays determines who becomes the president of the labour centre because that in itself would mean we sacrifice merit, you sacrifice quality. So, some unions can go anywhere and find money  from any source and pay so much money and then they don’t have quality, they don’t have what it takes. I think there is hope and that’s why I said we need self-examination. The workers have to rise to this occasion; if not, we are doomed. God forbid.