BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG

‘SOMEBODY had once said that in the state of lawlessness, it is illegal to be law abiding.”

ON September 21, 2004, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja was alleged to have been flown to Abuja to give a restraining order to Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, from embarking on strike to protest the hike in the pump prices of Petroleum products by then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government.

The order which was generally referred to by most Nigerians as a “black market injunction” when it came to public domain, especially after another High Court in Lagos, had refused to give such order and requested that labour must be put on notice, was not obeyed.

In fact, what angered Nigerian workers and most other Nigerians then was the pronouncement by the Judge that labour was not entitled to “protest any issue that is not related to labour dispute”, in spite of the provisions of section 40 of the Constitution and socio-economic effects of the price adjustment on the workers.

Of course, the order was not obeyed by workers including the said Judge and the staff of the court as they stayed off duties in compliance to that strike.

Eight years later, the drama is replaying itself all over again. This time it is from the National Industrial Court, NIC, the apex industrial court in the country.

Around 6pm on Friday, January 6, 2012, it filtered into the newsroom that the Abuja Division of the NIC was writing a restraining order to stop Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, from going ahead with the planned strike over the hike in the pump price of Petrol.

Labour Vanguard placed a call through to the leadership of NLC, which acknowledged the rumours, but dismissed it, saying the NIC was more intelligent than that.

However, when around 7.30 pm, report came in that the NIC had actually issued a restraining order stopping NLC and TUC from embarking on a strike action or conducting mass rallies and street protest across the federation, pending the determination of a motion on notice that was filed before it by the Federal Government.

The court was said to have given the ex-parte order after listening to a passionate appeal that was made before it by the Federal Government through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF.

Having failed to persuade leaders of organised labour to shelve the planned strike to protest the hike in the pump price of petrol, the AGF was said to have quickly ran to the NIC with a motion ex-parte, praying it to invoke its jurisdiction and abort the impending strike “in the interest of peace, national security and stability of the country.”

Moving the application, government lawyer, Mr Mathew Esho, contended that unless restrained by the NIC, the NLC and TUC will “interfere with the exercise of the constitutional powers of the executive arm of the Federal Government of Nigeria in the allocation and use of the scarce resources of the federal republic of Nigeria, including but not limited to the transfer of resources previously allocated to the subsidy of premium motor spirit (PMS) among others for the medium and long term socio-economic benefit of present and future generations of Nigerians.”