By Abdulkadir I. Isa
Decree 25 of 1989 was brought to public knowledge immediately after the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and MAMSER (Mass Mobilization for Self Reliance, Social Justice, and Economic Recovery) Summit on labour and politics which held in Calabar in Cross River State.
The summit was followed by the NLC’s National Executive Council (NEC), the second highest organ of the movement; in which the NLC was expected to endorse the decision of the summit plus other critical decisions of the Central Working Committee (CWC) of the NLC.
The most critical bone of contention at the time was the quest by the then Paschal Bafyau’s presidency of Congress to influence the endorsement of NLC’s involvement in the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC) which the CWC had passed after a voting process that gave the pro-privatisation group a slight victory. Before then, the NLC had nominated four representatives to the TCPC, prominent among which was the late Comrade Armstrong Ogbonna.
One is bound to believe that in the last 31 years, no effort may have been made to perhaps intimate any organ of the NLC the CWC’s decision on the de-registration even though, the ILO had on a number of occasions requested the Nigerian government to align its trade union act with the relevant ILO Convention on Freedom of Association.
Right after the CWC meeting, Comrades Peter Asamba (then President of Leather Workers Union and Treasurer of the NLC) and myself, from the then Customs and Excise and Immigration Staff Union (CEIMSU), were spreading the anti-privatisation campaign. We contested the CWC’s decision and vowed to campaign against it at the next organ of the Congress.
The flippant treatment accorded CEIMSU’s letter of protest forced the union to resort to media campaign on the subject. This visibly irked Comrade Bafyau as evidenced by his address at the NEC. Popular voices, and sufficiently mobilised and informed Nigerians, criticised the move by NLC to give credibility to the process by participating in what was believed to be the mortgaging of public assets.
In the light of the furore, Decree 25 of 1989 was ostensibly believed to have been promulgated to de-register the CEIMSU by amending section eleven (11) of Decree 31 of 1973 to include the staff of these establishments in the list of government establishments precluded from organising into a trade union.
This development further complicated how the Nigerian state is observing the ILO’s Convention 87 which it had ratified. Though Convention 87 permits all workers to unionise unconditionally, with the exception of men of the armed forces and police whose involvement would be on conditions prescribed in Decree 25 of 1989, customs and immigration workers were barred from unionisation. Decree 25 of 1989 further stipulate direct-check-off-dues for the NLC, thus henceforth granting it automatic 10% deduction directly from the dues of affiliate industrial unions.
From all indications, and given the complicity of the NLC in the effort to abrogating this draconian law, it will not be out of place to conclude that Decree 25 of 1989 was a carrot and stick decree.
In essence, the NLC had endorsed CEIMSU’s de-registration and was clearly unenthusiastic in supporting the leadership of CEIMSU in regaining its right to unionise. Going by the lack-lustre manner in which the NLC fought this obnoxious law, so much unlike the way they traditionally fight against oppressive labour legislations, the opinion of its leaders then can easily be predicted. Surprisingly, during the 40th commemoration of the statutorily formation of the NLC which held in 2018, no mention of this development was made at the event, neither was the presence of a guest who happened to be in the then CEIMSU leadership acknowledged at the ceremony. Subsequent efforts to make the NLC appreciate this omission were met with frustration and humiliation.
One is bound to believe that in the last 31 years, no effort may have been made to perhaps intimate any organ of the NLC the CWC’s decision on the de-registration even though, the ILO had on a number of occasions requested the Nigerian government to align its trade union act with the relevant ILO Convention on Freedom of Association.
Even though the federal government has, through a committee chaired by Mallam Nasir el-Rufia (now Governor of Kaduna State), given its nod towards the desirability of allowing joint industrial councils to evolve in these industries and this was adequately brought to the knowledge of the NLC, the issue has so far not been given the required attention. Request by CEIMSU leadership to be accorded observer status in the NLC, has equally not yielded the desired response.
This development further complicated how the Nigerian state is observing the ILO’s Convention 87 which it had ratified. Though Convention 87 permits all workers to unionise unconditionally, with the exception of men of the armed forces and police whose involvement would be on conditions prescribed in Decree 25 of 1989, customs and immigration workers were barred from unionisation. Decree 25 of 1989 further stipulate direct-check-off-dues for the NLC, thus henceforth granting it automatic 10% deduction directly from the dues of affiliate industrial unions.
From all indications, it seems the NLC has remained aloof to the interests of CEIMSU right from when it was de-registered and Comrade Peter Asamba’s leadership disbanded thereby plunging the union into oblivion in the imagination of the Congress.
A day would come in the future, or it is already here, when the exact positions and actions of the past would be re-echoed by union activists. The price of supporting privatisation nay collaborating with catalysts of neo-liberalism is now being paid in heavy currency devaluation, and even strong apostles of neo-liberal policies are convinced that the market can neither provide welfare for our citizens nor resolve the contradictions in our economy.
It is a pity that the NLC swallowed the bait and chose to sacrifice workers and genuine friends of workers. But now that it is obvious that the size of the palm cannot cover the sky; attempts should be made to revise and rewrite NLC’s history to reflect this chapter of the struggle. CEIMSU’s registration was obtained in court and that judgement cannot be obliterated. The de-registration then did not only deny the workers in the sector their right to association but also their right to freedom of thought, expression and conscience.
It may suffice to end this contribution by the words of Peter Waterman (division and unity amongst Nigerian workers Lagos port unionism 1940s-60s) to this effect: “The value of historical studies lies….in the fact that this is how activists can most easily understand society and in the fact it best shows how they are being shaped by, and are themselves shaping that society”
In this context, I hope the fourth coming 70th anniversary of the independence initiatives to form a central labour organisation will give Nigerian workers accounts of their struggle especially under Structural Adjustment Program and how the united front of ASUU, NANS and NLC was sundered in order to weaken the popular voices against SAP, IMF and loss of national sovereignty to Bretton Wood institutions and multi-national companies.
Comrade Abdulkadir writes from Maiduguri, Borno State capital.
