August 2024. Nigerians took to the streets under #EndBadGovernance, demanding a reversal of subsidy removal, affordable food, fair wages, and an end to insecurity. The Tinubu government answered with repression: comrades arrested, detained, beaten, and dragged into a treason trial that stretched over a...
The strategy of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) over the last decade or so has included extended negotiations, limited strike threats and generally calling off strikes at the last moment. The assumption appears to have been that we have decent governments that only occasionally need reminding to do the right thing. In fact we have corrupt governments that only work to further enrich themselves and their elite friends. They rarely, if ever, actually implement any agreements that they have signed with the trade unions.