Goodbye, Mr. Omar

NLC elections and the legacy conundrum


A democracy is many things. It is about citizens that vote. It is about institutions that are constitutionally enabled to drive the processes of statecraft. While some function directly, others exert indirect influences. One such indirect buoy is organised labour. As the aggregator of the views of the bulk of the working class in a country, organised labour is an important player in the overall democracy project.


During the Olusegun Obasanjo era when Adams Oshiomhole held sway as captain of the labour movement, and in the absence of a strong, formal political opposition in the land; the lot fell on the labour movement to ensure that there was some degree of accountability in the land.


While some commentators take exception to this liberal reading of the mandate of Labour in a democratic society, the deeper truth is that such a reading did not begin with Oshiomhole. In the 1940s for example, it was organised labour, then led by the venerable Micheal Imoudu, aka Number One, that rose to the challenge of insisting on the right of Nigerian workers and people to be treated with dignity and decorum in the land of their birth despite that Nigeria was then a British-occupied territory.
Imoudu it was who led the workers and other Nigerian nationalists in what is perhaps, the first minimum wage protests in our history, the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) struggle. When the colonial security forces brutalized and killed workers at the Iva Valley Mines in the eastern heartland of Enugu, it was again the mercurial pan-Nigerian fighter that rose to the fray and led organised labour and the nationalists in demanding justice for victims and more hospitable mining conditions in the land.
Imoudu’s interventions were not only for the masses. When for example, he heard that the Nigerian elite were being denied access to ‘Whites Only’ clubs, the lion in him arose and he led yet another series of marches to de-segregate the clubs. Indeed, when the full and correct story of Nigeria’s independence movement is eventually told, it would be most apparent that it is heroic statesmen like Imoudu that should occupy the top ranks.


Beyond Imoudu and Oshiomhole, other notable labour leaders like Hassan Summonu have also read the mandate of labour to include advocacy for the rights and interests of the Nigerian people. And such advocacy has helped in ensuring a balance in the political make-up of the nation and ensuring that the issues of the mass are not casually dismissed by elite power jugglers.
It is one such moment that arose on January 1, 2012 when the Jonathan administration gave Nigerians the very ill-timed new year’s gift of a hike in the prices of petroleum products! Incensed, organised labour joined other civil society advocates in resisting the increase.


However, unlike in the Imoudu and Oshiomhole eras, it soon became clear that the Abdulwaheed Omar-leadership of the NLC, in consort with the Peter Esele-led Trade Union Congress were only observing the motions. To paraphrase a Bible text, they were only ‘having a form of militancy but denying the power thereof.’ And so the protests petered off.


Many commentators believe that the now-ending Omar era, like that of Paschal Bafyau also, clearly does not fit in with the highpoints of the labour movement in Nigeria. And even as Congress is engaged this week in picking a new leadership, they also do not see much to recommend the trio of Ayuba Wabba, Igwe Achese and Joe Ajaero who are currently angling to succeed Omar as NLC President.


Interestingly, the NLC polls are coming in the middle of one of the most embarrassing mis-steps associated with organised labour in recent times. It has to do with the ill-advised mass housing scheme being undertaken by Congress in conjunction with the developer, Kriston Lally Nigeria Limited which till date has failed to deliver one house!
While Congress is accusing the company of making illegal withdrawals from the project account, the company is accusing Congress of not having met a pre-condition of the project, namely the provision of land upon which the said houses would be built!
Meanwhile the embattled workers remain caught in the throes with no houses, their monies trapped and no solid assurance that the saga would be resolved in their favour soon. This is what happens when leaders leave the core demands of their calling in preference for chasing shadows.


The next President of the NLC must then not be only one who stares down government. He must also be one who would like Caeser’s wife is seen to be clearly above board in all respects. Goodbye, Mr Omar.