COMRADE Ali Chiroma, mni, MON, the second President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), is dead.
Comrade Chiroma died on Tuesday at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Maiduguri, Borno State capital.
Comrade Chiroma was 91 years on February 27, 2024.
A family member, Ali Ibrahim Chiroma, announced the death of the veteran trade unionist in a statement on Tuesday. Ali Ibrahim Chiroma is the Secretary of the Borno State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
The statement reads: “It is with deep sorrow that I announce the death of Comrade Ali Chiroma, former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress.
“The sad event occurred this evening (Tuesday, April 2) at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.
“The burial for the repose of the deceased will be held tomorrow, Wednesday by 4pm at the residence of the deceased at No.7A along Galadima Road, near Muhammadu Shuwa Memorial Hospital (Nursing Home), Maiduguri.”
The late Comrade Chiroma succeeded Comrade Hassan Sunmonu as NLC President in 1984 to 1988 when he was forced out of office by the then military administration of General Ibrahim Babangida, which dissolved the union.
The Abacha administration brought him back into unionism, appointing him as the Sole Administrator of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers.
As the second president, Comrade Chiroma continued with the tradition of maintaining the NLC as a strong and militant workers organisation, bringing on board university graduates with activist orientation to strengthen and broaden the NLC as a mass organisation with clear left ideological identity.
Born on 27th February 1933, Comrade Chiroma had his early education in Yerwa and Borno Middle School in his home state of Borno.
His working career began as a teacher at the Medical Field Unit Training School, Makurdi in 1950, and later at the SS Laboratory School, Kaduna (1951-52), Malaria Control Course at Yaba, Lagos (1953-954) where he also trained in Scistosomiasis and Nutrition.
He also had teaching and administrative courses at the Kaduna Training Centre between 1965 and 1966. He obtained the General Certificate of Education in 1967 and eventually completed his studies in Health Teachers’ Course at the School of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, in 1980.
Comrade Chiroma also trained at the International Institute for Labour Studies in Geneva, Switzerland in 1980 and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, near Jos, Plateau State, in 1983 where he was a member of Senior Executive Course (SEC) No. 5.
Before he was elected as President of NLC in February 1984, Comrade Chiroma worked in several medical institutions. He was principal of School of Health Technology, Maiduguri, when he was elected President of Congress.
As a trade unionist, he went through the following processes and held positions at various levels before he eventually emerged President of NLC.
For instance, in 1950, Comrade Chiroma joined trade union cadre as a member of Sleeping Sickness and Medical Field Units Workers Union in Makurdi.
Between 1960-1977, he was President, Nigeria Union of Rural Health Workers, while he was National Vice President of the then United Labour Congress between 1963-1977.
In 1977-1981, Comrade Chiroma was elected National Deputy President of the newly restructured Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria.
By 1978, he was elected the first Chairman of Borno State Council of the NLC, and was elected at the 1981 NLC Delegates’ Conference in Kano as the first National Deputy President.
In 1984, he was elected to succeed Comrade Sunmonu as President of the NLC and again re-elected in February, 1988 at the Benin Delegates’ Conference, which was truncated by the Babangida military junta when the NLC was proscribed.
In 1984, Comrade Chiroma was elected into the Governing Body of the ILO to represent African workers. He was re-elected in 1987.
His leadership was noted to have had several running battles with the military regimes of Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida.
Prominent among the struggles he waged were the declaration of June 4, 1986 as Day of Demonstration in memory of ABU students that were killed by police and the protracted resistance against Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP).
These struggles earned him arrest and detention without trial by the military authorities.
For his nationalism, his commitment to social justice in Nigeria and the cause of the working people as well as his exemplary leadership of Congress, Comrade Chiroma was honoured with the national award, Member of the Order of the Niger (MON).
He was also awarded an Honorary Ph.D. by the Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola.
He is a member of the National Institute (mni) having successfully completed the 10-month course at NIPSS in Kuru, Jos.
