By Iduh Onah
THERE was a time when the mere hint of a nationwide strike by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) could send governments scrambling to the court as well as the negotiating table. The Congress, as the NLC is popularly called by its affiliates, was not merely a trade union centre; it was the conscience of the Nigerian working class, a formidable democratic force that challenged military dictatorships, resisted anti-people policies, and reminded those in power that the governed were neither toothless nor voiceless.
Today, however, one cannot avoid asking an uncomfortable question: Why has the NLC become so unusually quiet? The question is not prompted by an absence of hardship. Quite the contrary. Nigeria is arguably witnessing the harshest economic conditions in decades. Inflation has devastated purchasing power, food prices have become prohibitive, transportation costs have multiplied, electricity tariffs continue their relentless climb, and the national minimum wage has already become largely symbolic.
It is remarkable how many recent NLC presidents retire almost seamlessly into the circles of the affluent, influential and politically-connected. While personal success is hardly a crime, one cannot entirely dismiss the symbolism. Does this revolving door between labour leadership and elite acceptance subtly reshape incentives while in office? Does proximity to power eventually soften confrontation with power? The question deserves contemplation, not because guilt should be presumed, but because perceptions matter profoundly in public leadership.
Yet the organisation that once instinctively transformed workers’ frustrations into coordinated national action now appears content issuing press statements that vanish almost as quickly as they are published. The NLC increasingly resembles a sympathetic observer rather than the combative vanguard it once proudly embodied.
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Why exactly has the Congress been reduced to a feeble-barking organisation whose greatest weapon now remains strongly-worded press statements, which, however eloquent, have never frightened governments?
Perhaps the most troubling development is that while the suffering of ordinary Nigerians has become a universal fact, NLC’s reaction through its statements has become curiously episodic, and restrained for that matter. The familiar sequence has become almost ritualistic: condemn, threaten, negotiate, silence and await another crisis. Such predictability diminishes bargaining power because governments now understand that deadlines are often negotiable and threats frequently expire without consequence.
The silence becomes even more bewildering considering the magnitude of the assault on workers’ living standards.
One could reasonably argue that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic policies had, in less than a year of implementation by 2024, inflicted deeper structural damage on the working class than the combined policies of the administrations of Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan and Buhari. Fuel subsidy removal without adequate social protection, currency liberalisation, soaring inflation and the escalating cost of virtually every necessity have produced an unprecedented erosion of real wages.
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If ever there existed a moment demanding an intellectually vigorous, strategically relentless and organisationally fearless labour movement, surely this is it. Instead, organised labour appears strangely subdued and casual. One is therefore compelled to ask difficult questions.
Has the leadership become too comfortable? Have some labour leaders become so insulated by privilege that they now inhabit the same psychological universe as presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, who infamously declared that he could not see the hunger Nigerians were complaining about? Comfort has a peculiar capacity to dull moral urgency. Leaders who no longer experience the anxieties of ordinary workers may gradually lose the instinct to fight with the desperation those workers expect.
There is another uncomfortable observation.
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It is remarkable how many recent NLC presidents retire almost seamlessly into the circles of the affluent, influential and politically-connected. While personal success is hardly a crime, one cannot entirely dismiss the symbolism. Does this revolving door between labour leadership and elite acceptance subtly reshape incentives while in office? Does proximity to power eventually soften confrontation with power? The question deserves contemplation, not because guilt should be presumed, but because perceptions matter profoundly in public leadership.
Until NLC’s leadership provides an answer; not merely through speeches and statements, but through purposeful, strategic and sustained action, that question will continue to haunt both the Congress and the millions of Nigerian workers whose hopes it was created to defend.
Equally troubling is the possibility that the problem lies deeper than personalities. Could this be evidence of ideological shallowness?
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The great labour movements of history, including NLC’s, were driven not merely by industrial disputes but by coherent philosophies of social justice, economic democracy and class organisation. Without ideological depth, activism degenerates into crisis management. Negotiation becomes an end rather than an instrument. Mobilisation becomes reactive instead of strategic. In other words, a labour movement uncertain about its intellectual foundations inevitably struggles to inspire sustained resistance.
The quality of any organisation also reflects the quality of its secretariat. Traditionally, the secretariat ought to function as labour’s engine room – producing research, policy alternatives, mobilisation strategies, media engagement and continuous political education. Is today’s NLC secretariat fulfilling that historic responsibility, or has it simply become insipid, administratively routine and intellectually exhausted?
These questions acquire additional relevance following the public disagreement at the Hassan Sunmonu book launch on January 7, 2026, where NLC President, Comrade Joe Ajaero, criticised the new tax regime as punitive to workers, only for former NLC President, and currently a senator, Adams Oshiomhole, to challenge him publicly.
Oshiomhole’s sharp rebuke – “Organise, don’t agonise” (a phrase which is incidentally the title of Veteran Sunmonu’s book) – was politically convenient, yet it unintentionally exposed a deeper truth. Whether or not one agrees with his politics today, his criticism resonated because many Nigerians already perceive the NLC as lamenting more than leading.
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Even more revealing is that criticism of NLC’s passivity no longer comes only from commentators. When the Federal Workers Forum (FWF) announced its nationwide protests last week, it openly questioned the silence of both the NLC and the TUC. More strikingly, the FWF planned to picket not only government institutions but also the national headquarters of both labour centres. Such symbolism would have been almost unimaginable a generation ago. When workers begin protesting against the organisations established to defend them, something fundamental has gone wrong.
This is not an argument for perpetual strikes. Strikes are costly instruments and should never become reflex actions. But effective trade unionism has never been measured by the number of press conferences organised or press statements issued. It is measured by organisational capacity, strategic imagination, intellectual clarity and the ability to convince governments that ignoring workers carries genuine political consequences.
The NLC remains one of Nigeria’s most consequential democratic institutions. Its history commands respect. Its legacy deserves admiration. But Comrade Ajaero and the organs of NLC must know that history cannot substitute for being alive, conscious and relevant. That is why two of the greatest maxims of the Trade Union Movement include: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” and “A luta continua”,Portuguese for “The struggle continues”.
These maxims do not capture the contemporary persona of the NLC that continues to retreat into cautious rhetoric while the working class is being consumed by hunger and poverty. The NLC risks becoming little more than a ceremonial relic – a respected institution remembered more for what it once accomplished than for what it presently does. I consciously avoided holding the TUC to account because, historically, it remains the Greek Gift that it was.
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The tragedy of NLC’s abdication of its role would extend beyond NLC’s current leadership. A timid labour movement weakens democracy because organised labour has historically served our society’s most credible counterweight to arbitrary economic power. When that counterweight becomes hesitant, ordinary citizens lose one of their strongest institutional defenders.
The question therefore persists, growing louder with each passing month of economic anguish: Why has the NLC been unusually quiet?
Until NLC’s leadership provides an answer; not merely through speeches and statements, but through purposeful, strategic and sustained action, that question will continue to haunt both the Congress and the millions of Nigerian workers whose hopes it was created to defend.
Onah is the Editor-in-Chief of NATIONAL RECORD and writes this column every Wednesday. He was, between 2009-2011, the Acting Head of Information, NLC and co-author of: Nigeria Labour Congress: Contemporary History of Working Class Struggles: 1978-2018
