NLC And The Big ‘War’ Ahead

 By Ochereome Nnanna

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, is saddled with three mandates. The first is the classical or labour mandate – fighting for the interests of the working class. The second is the social mandate – protecting the interests of the masses in an environment where the ruling elite have increasingly become more selfish, corrupt and incompetent than ever.

It was under the presidency of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole that NLC assumed the social mandate on behalf of Nigerians who were subjected to series of fuel price hikes by the Olusegun Obasanjo government. These measures affected the workers and the general public equally, so Oshiomhole led Labour to bravely tackle the Obasanjo government. From that moment on, the people started looking up to Labour to deploy for them whenever government introduced policies that stoked hardship.

The third is the political mandate. There is a thinking among workers’ unions that they should go beyond merely demanding their rights from politicians. The working class must get involved in partisan politics and participate in shaping the direction of the polity, economy and society. That is why there are many labour parties in many countries, though some of them are merely committed to social democratic values with little to do with workers’ unions in terms of direct affiliation.

Under the presidency of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, NLC registered a political party called the Party for the Social Democrats, PSD, in 2002. But after the 2003 general elections it was renamed the Labour Party, LP. So, unknown to many, the Labour Party is all of 20 years this year. It was not until the 2023 general elections that the Party made revolutionary impacts in our polity due to the impetus of Peter Obi and the support of the Obidient Movement independently facilitated by the Nigerian youth.

Because of this tripartite mandate, the NLC looms large in our socio-political and economic horizons. During the regime of fast-talking Comrade Ayuba Wabba, the NLC failed to meet the expectations of the public with regard to its social impact. It was all sound and motion but no dividend. Wabba’s regime was able to extract a new minimum wage from the Muhammadu Buhari government but failed to curb the rise of petrol price from N87 to N180 per litre, and the total subsidy removal that brought prices above N500 per litre.

Since Comrade Joe Ajaero assumed office last year, he has resuscitated the tripartite mandate. The NLC stayed out of the Labour Party’s electioneering activities. But when Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Chairman, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu carried out a coup against the Commission’s own guidelines and the Electoral Act and announced the “winner” of the presidential election even amidst the chaotic glitches in its system, Ajaero issued a statement. He called on the INEC to attend to the opposition complaints before announcing the results, a demand echoed by former President Obasanjo, but which Yakubu ignored. Thus, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn-in as Nigeria’s 16th President.

The second political action the NLC took was in mobilising the support of all its organs for Comrade Julius Abure, the Labour Party’s National Chairman, when Alhaji Lamidi Apapa factionalised the party, obviously with a view to torpedoing Peter Obi’s challenge of the result of the presidential election at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, PEPT. All the 36 states and Abuja branches of the NLC pledged their support for Julius Abure, and the latter resumed full control of the party secretariat. 

The opportunity for the Ajaero regime to showcase its social mandate credentials presented itself on the day Tinubu was inaugurated as President. Petrol subsidy was supposed to stop in end of June 2023. By pronouncing it as “gone” on May 29, without the due preparations to minimise the pains on Nigerians, petrol price jumped above N500 per litre, and fuel stations shut their gates.

Nigerians were plunged into another catatonic hardship comparable to Buhari’s currency change policy which gripped the nation between October 2023 and February 2023. There “was no fuel, no money and no power”. The NLC had to show up. They called for a reversal of the subsidy removal and served notice of a warning strike which was scheduled for June 7, 2023. 

Tinubu moved quickly and set up a panel to engage Labour and hammer out a common strategy to deliver palliatives to the people. The president’s media handlers accused Ajaero of playing Peter Obi’s script. This accusation was obviously meant to politicise Labour’s mass actions and isolate the NLC president and his core group.

It is a familiar tactic which the military used in attempts to neutralise Labour and ram through its draconian, anti-people agenda. General Sani Abacha, in particular, used this tactic to break up Comrade Frank Kokori’s Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, which, in 1994, sided NADECO in the struggle to restore MKO Abiola’s annulled mandate. 

Abacha dissolved the leadership of the NLC, NUPENG and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, appointed sole administrators and dumped Kokori and other Labour leaders in detention. Before attacking Labour, Abacha’s government had accused its leadership of abandoning the welfare of workers to engage in partisan politics.

Tinubu government’s accusation of Ajaero of confronting it to gratify the political interests of Peter Obi is an old trick being exhumed, perhaps ahead of a well-laid trap to re-enact Abacha’s emasculation of Labour and its leadership. Funny enough, in 1994, Tinubu was a comrade-in-arms with Labour as a member of NADECO. 

Now that he is President, will he use Abacha’s sledgehammer against Labour when push comes to shove? Labour will soon come forward with a demand for a new minimum wage, fully cognisant of the government’s ostentatious lifestyle. We will see how much of a democrat Tinubu really is. It will be a core Labour struggle. It will be battle royale.

*Nnanna is a commentator on public issues