THE NIGERIA Labour Congress (NLC) of post-Babangida and Abacha eras resurrected as a dog that wags its tail on strangers that it is supposed to contain. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is the progenitor of that NLC generation – the era of too much talk and less action.
Despite leading numerous protests against President Olusegun Obasanjo government’s neo-liberal agenda, the subsidy removal policies were never reversed, but the strikes were always called off.
My observation over the years, and I think it doesn’t need too much to be reflected on, to note that the government has been using the same tactics to disorient and dislocate labour. We do not need any prophet to tell us that our political leadership in cohorts with government bureaucrats have successfully perfected the strategy of truncating and defusing labour activism. It has been the practice for them to wait patiently after ultimatums are given until the eve of or a day into mass actions, strikes, protests or rallies before they ‘summon’ labour leaders to the Presidential Villa for dialogue, out of which the surmounted labour leaders come smiling with some inoperable MoUs which they use to annul, on radio and television, resolutions of organs of Congress.
Oshiomhole’s leadership was succeeded by the Abdulwaheed Omar leadership, whose tenure was marked by lacklustre performance and further decline. The NLC’s reputation continued to suffer, with many viewing it as ineffective and compromised.
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The situation didn’t improve under Ayuba Wabba, who was seen as a stooge of the APC. The Buhari administration had a relatively easy time, with the NLC failing to hold the government accountable for their actions.
While we will remember Oshiomhole, Umar and Wabba for their achievements in vacuity, we are yet to know what Ajaero will be remembered for.
Currently, the sky of the Congress still looks foggy. Government seems to have perfectly understood how the NLC operates and have developed a sustainable methodology of goading its decisions they way government wishes and pushing its (NLC’s) leadership along the whims and caprices of the Nigerian ruling class.
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While there is clearly no indicator of reversal, a few comrades are still hopeful, thinking that Joe Ajaero might bring about some sense of purposeful leadership to the labour movement. Of course, Ajaero had an impressive background of activism from his mother union, the electricity union, but since entering the Paschal Bafyau Labour House headquarters of the Congress, he appears to be uncreatively applying the ineffective strategies that failed his predecessors.
The NLC’s actions, and inactions, in the face of continuously depressingly harsh economic policies remains very dismal. The current state of the Congress completely deflects from the organisation it was, a militant working class organisation that rattled military dictatorship and thus was instrumental to the return of the democracy, anaemic as it may be. Its response on telecoms industry tariff, as its other responses on the unleashing of neo-liberal policies since the Buhari presidency, is only symbolic of a visionless leadership or an enfeebled organisation living only on its past heroic repute.
The suspension of NLC’s planned protest over the recent 50% increase in telecom tariff following a last-minute engagement with the federal government, didn’t come as a surprise for Nigerian workers or members of the Nigerian working class, who have been left demoralised by the uninspiring leadership of successive leaders of the NLC, notably under our democracy that labour activism ought to flourish.
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My observation over the years, and I think it doesn’t need too much to be reflected on, to note that the government has been using the same tactics to disorient and dislocate labour. We do not need any prophet to tell us that our political leadership in cohorts with government bureaucrats have successfully perfected the strategy of truncating and defusing labour activism. It has been the practice for them to wait patiently after ultimatums are given until the eve of or a day into mass actions, strikes, protests or rallies before they ‘summon’ labour leaders to the Presidential Villa for dialogue, out of which the surmounted labour leaders come smiling with some inoperable MoUs which they use to annul, on radio and television, resolutions of organs of Congress.
The NLC’s actions, and inactions, in the face of continuously depressingly harsh economic policies remains very dismal. The current state of the Congress completely deflects from the organisation it was, a militant working class organisation that rattled military dictatorship and thus was instrumental to the return of the democracy, anaemic as it may be. Its response on telecoms industry tariff, as its other responses on the unleashing of neo-liberal policies since the Buhari presidency, is only symbolic of a visionless leadership or an enfeebled organisation living only on its past heroic repute.
This is a responsibility that the NLC cannot run away from! Its leaders should know that any form of abdication or abnegation of responsibility is corruption. It is incumbent upon the NLC and other stakeholders to hold the government accountable for its policies that perpetrate hardship and death. The NLC has a historic duty to advocate for reforms that prioritise the needs and interests of the Nigerian people, it should, as an African adage says, stop being a dog that wags its tail on strangers!
The policies implemented under President Ahmed Tinubu’s administration can be likened to “Israeli bombs in Lebanon,” causing significant damage to the country’s economic space. The NLC’s decision to protest the telecom tariff hike, in my opinion, is even belated, and that is why some of us are questioning the organisation’s conscience and commitment to protecting the interests of Nigerian workers and citizens.
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The 50% tariff increase is just one aspect of a broader set of economic reforms that have been imposed on Nigeria, largely at the behest of international organisations such – the Bretton Woods financial institutions. These reforms have been criticised for prioritising corporate profits over the well-being of the Nigerian people, and for exacerbating poverty and inequality.
According to Frederick Douglas, “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
Nigerians are going through harrowing times, and the state of the nation aptly illustrates the phenomenon of state capture, which the NLC remains the most legitimate, and indeed, the most powerful organisation, to lead the charge against, just as had been done during the military eras.
This is a responsibility that the NLC cannot run away from! Its leaders should know that any form of abdication or abnegation of responsibility is corruption. It is incumbent upon the NLC and other stakeholders to hold the government accountable for its policies that perpetrate hardship and death. The NLC has a historic duty to advocate for reforms that prioritise the needs and interests of the Nigerian people, it should, as an African adage says, stop being a dog that wags its tail on strangers!
Comrade Amechi, Lagos-based trade union activist, writes this column, ‘The Observer’s View’, every Tuesday.
