By AMINU JAHUN

The state of the nation reveals the incapacity of right of centre politicians to rise beyond their interests in Nigeria. But despite this, Nigerians have to put up with them, because they constitute the dominant political force in the nation. Neither the left, nor the labour movement, is poised to upend them from power.

The Labour Party has been hijacked by other interests, whilst the NLC and TUC are on an opprtunistic self serving frolic, which transformed their high profile product in the Fourth Republic, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, into a politician who can’t use politics to advance the interests of Nigerian workers.

It is this disconnect with Nigerians which brought new leaders who spearheaded their recent protests. The inability of the NLC and TUC to selflessly defend the interests of Nigerian workers, reveals a rupture with the selfless leadership tradition of the past labour leaders.

It was the West African Pilot of the late Dr Nnamdi Azikwe which coined the name Labour Leader Number One, which was used to  befittingly describe the colossus of  colonial labour struggles in Nigeria: Pa Imoudu, as he was also fondly called by his admirers and disciples. Pa Imoudu was a product of his environment and circumstances, whose trade union and political crusades helped to accentuate  the demise of colonial rule in Nigeria. 

 First, he belonged to the colonial system, which established the Nigerian Railway to maximally exploit the economy, which offered him a job. And secondly, he was an outgrowth of the toiling masses, whose advanced vanguard, the Nigerian workers, moulded him into a selfless leader.

Why was he serially referred by the Zik Group of Newspapers as Labour Leader Number One?  Was he really that, or was it a media sensation by the nationalist press to lionise him in the colonial period ?

 Mr Babington Macauley was the Railway Workers Union president in 1932. But it was under Imoudu’s leadership that the Union became the first registered trade union in Nigeria in 1940. Probably this, and the underlisted reasons, might have informed the West African Pilot’s choice of Labour Leader Number One for M.A. O. Imoudu.

Secondly, at critical moments he adeptly exploited opportunities, and deployed his potent weapons to attain his goals. As a young apprentice, he galvanised Nigerian Railway workers to embark on an immediate strike against the introduction of hourly pay rate of wages in 1931. By then, he was not yet a union executive.

Thirdly, Pa Imoudu’s sincerity of purpose, spartan life style, long range vision, and unparalled passion for, and commitment to, the cause of the working class were legendary, which set him apart as a unique leader. To refer to him plainly as a labour leader is to falsify him; he wasn’t only a labour warrior, Pa Imoudu led at other fronts: politics and welfarism, who collided with the prejudices which underscored colonial racial relations, which affirmed the inherent equality of races, and the dignity of the black skin.

Fourthly, his revolutionary genie was unbottled when he led 3,000 protesters on a five-mile trek to the seat of the Colonial Government in Lagos, against the highhandedness of a Chief Mechanical Engineer in the Nigerian Railway in 1941. Since then, he was trouble personified for the colonial establishment, who began to pay his dues the hard way with multilple queries, dismissal and detention under the Defence Regulations in 1943.

Fifthly, no labour or nationalist leader before him had ever literally set Nigeria, a  colonial dependency on fire, grounded its  economy, with a successful 45-day cost of living strike, which shook the foundation of colonial rule in 1945, from which it never recovered, till independence was granted in 1960. His relentless labour crusades were, one way or the other, precursors to the independence of Nigeria.

 Sixth, he was a pillar in the fight for a better Nigeria, which made pioneer political leaders who checkmated the colonial system: Dr Azikwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Ernest Ikoli, Aminu Kano, among others, to highly venerate him.

Seventh, he didn’t only fight in the labour movement, he also fought in the political front. He was a member of NCNC’s Pan Nigeria delegation to London on protest against the Richards Constitution in 1946. His life of ceaseless struggles on behalf of Nigerian people underscored the complementarity of labour unionism  and politics to him.

Eighth, fire-spitting trade unionists, who constituted a class in themselves: Eskor Toyo, Wahab Goodluck, Baba Omojola, Comrade Ola Oni, Tunji Otegbeye, Mukwugo Okoye, etc, his disciples, all of blessed memory, who worked with him at various levels were the intellectual and ideological arrowheads of Nigeria’s trade unionism.

Ninth, as a welfarist, Michael Imoudu  offered scholarships to many young Nigerians who studied in the former Soviet Union, and other socialist countries in Eastern Europe.

In view of the above, one might conclude that the appellation: Labour Leader Number One suited no other trade unionist, then and after, but him. It was earned, not graciously bestowed by the West African Pilot on M. A.O. Imoudu, who blazed the trail in the defence of workers, where he left a difficult to fill vacuum. His leadership was devoid of hypocrisy, double dealing, and had no personal agenda to pursue in trade union, and political activities.

He might have wished to leave behind, if not a socialist republic, at least a robust, incorruptible labour party or movement, which would continue to defend the interests of the working class, and the Nigerian people. With political colleagues and unionist disciples such as Balarabe Musa, Abubakar Rimi, Eskor Toyo, Edwin Madunagu, Hassan Sunmonu, Ali Chiroma, Frank Kokori, Attahiru Jega, Sani Zorro, etc, he died a fulfilled trade union and political strategist, because he might be confident that they would steadfastly continue to light the way for Nigerian people and workers.

Unfortunately Imoudu’s tissue-cultured disciples have been displaced by the garbage of the trade union movement, who emerged in the Fourth Republic, who use strikes as bargaining chips for other things; who obey court orders before they are granted; serial capitulators on the eve of battles; whose leadership echoes Orwell’s Animal Farm. During the presidency of one of them, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, dictatorial tendencies began to manifest in handling the affairs of the Congress.

Senator Adams Oshiomhole diverged from the path of the late Labour Leader, whose principled life- long struggle on behalf of the downtrodden, seems analogue to him.

Their divergence can be hypothesized. If the late Pa Imoudu had wanted to contest for any elective post, he would have done so on a worker’s party platform, or a left wing party. He would follow the paths of his across the Atlantic comrades: Evo Morales in Bolivia, Lech Walesa in Poland, and Lula da Silva in Brazil, trade unionists who built political careers on workers parties.

And had Imoudu been a Senator, whose party in power removed fuel subsidy, he would either lead a powerful legislative struggle for its unconditional reinstatement; or he would honourably resign from that Senate. 

And he would have strongly condemned the Tinubu regime on the way it mishandled the recent hunger protests; and if he had been a governor, he would not refuse to implement the approved minimum wage for the workers in his state. He would pay higher than the approved benchmark.

Despite his elevated trade union background, which paved way for his political career, Senator Oshiomhole didn’t fight for the reintroduction of fuel subsidy, and his unfortunate comment on the recent hunger protest was that its leaders were faceless.

As National Party Chairman, and Senator, he would rather defend governments than Nigerians. His spirited defence of government in 2015, was that “the crisis we have at the moment…was due to the recklessness of the previous administration”; reproduced in 2023 in defence of another government that “Tinubu should not be held responsible for the wrong or right decisions of the previous adminstration”. Posthumously, Pa Imoudu would take exception to that from a former NLC president.

The Joe Ajaero-led NLC and Osifo’s TUC betrayed Nigerian workers for their refusal to embark on an indefinite peaceful strike, to force the government to reintroduce subsidies. As a rule of law compliant organisation, they obeyed court orders to restrain them from embarking on strikes and protests, and never approached any court to vacate such orders, which makes them complicit in truncating the struggles of Nigerian workers. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the NLC leaders may suffer personal harm in discharging their duties, the Congress shouldn’t call Nigerian workers, whose interests it shoddily protects, to fight the battles of its leaders. As a rule of law compliant organisation, which strictly adheres to court orders which restrain it from strikes or protests, its leaders should avail themselves a rule of law mechanism to seek redress for any personal harm they may suffer in their duties.

•  Jahun, a commentator on public affairs, wrote from Dutse, Jigawa State