NLC And Labour Party’s Romance Of Strange Bed Fellows 

I don’t know exactly what the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is still doing with Labour Party (LP). If that is meant to be romance, then certainly it’s a bitter one. The events of recent days, if anything, are showing in clear terms that the two are indeed strange bed fellows.

A few months ago, I dedicated one of my weekly articles here to what I consider as the illogicality and danger entailed by the NLC’s ill-advised venture into the tricky waters of partisan politics through its association with LP. I began that write-up by reporting how the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, struggled to give satisfactory answers to a TV presenter’s questions as to how his union can reconcile the contradictions between its role as a civil society organisation and its romance with Labour Party, a partisan entity. I had thought that those moments of chastisement before television cameras would have compelled Ajaero and his union to step back a bit from the arena of partisan politics. But as it appears, the union is still asserting itself in that sphere to the extent of waging a war to remain relevant there.

The implication is that Ajaero and the NLC appear blind, or at best indifferent, to the danger entailed by their romance with a political party. To restate my position the last time, the NLC, as a civil society body that should hold government accountable, has no business owning and running a political party. The lopsidedness of this venture would have become very glaring had the LP presidential candidate won the last election and become president. How would the NLC confront the government it is technically part of on issues of workers’ welfare? It cannot cry for a new minimum wage if the government delays or refuses to implement one given that it is itself part of the government. ASUU, resident doctors, other health workers, and several other trade unions, some of whom are affiliates of the NLC, all have unresolved issues with the government – will they still have the moral grounds to continue with their fight when the government of the day is of the party they own?

Today in Abia State, an LP governor, Alex Oti, is in the saddle. News coming from Aba and Umuahia so far suggests he has started well. Notwithstanding, it is almost impossible that he would stay for four years without having, at least, one labour dispute to contend with. If such dispute comes, then we would have the NLC in Abia fighting the government its party sponsored. Labour disputes are between the employer and the employee, but by its “ownership” of the LP, the NLC has distorted this dichotomy, such that workers in Abia are, at the same time, both employees and their own employer.

It is a pipe dream to expect a political party, irrespective of its presumed affinity with civil society, to remain totally faithful to the ideals of civil society when it gets hold of power. Political power and civil society each has its distinct logic, motivations, and inherent values. Power seeks to dominate and control while civil society is there to check power and hold it accountable. History bears ample testimony to this truth. With all the intellectual and political avowals of worker welfarism by the Marxist-Leninist activists of Russia, it took only a while, once these ideologues seized power in October 1917, for the incompatibility between power and civil society to manifest in full force. The so-called workers’ party dedicated to the emancipation of the poor masses immediately became the terror of the poor masses. The rest is history. In Poland, the workers, alongside other citizens, and with strong backing of their compatriot, Pope John Paul Il, had to fight tooth and nail to emancipate themselves from the suffocating dictatorship of the “workers'” party.

This is why our labour law prohibits workers at certain managerial levels from joining workers’ union. This category of employees share power with the owner; they’re literally an extension of the ownership, hence their interest may not always align with the interest of ordinary workers. In the same way, once a “workers'” party grabs political power, its interest cannot remain the same with that of workers.

Besides all this, it is not possible for the NLC to genuinely own and run a political party given the realities of our political space. This is why I use inverted commas when I write “workers’ party” in relation to the body. Can NLC fund such party to seriously contest elections? It is the politicians that have been funding LP, hence are in control of it. Without the money of politicians, the LP could not have been relevant in the 2023 elections and in other previous elections in the country. It took the defection of Peter Obi to the party for it to become a serious participant in the last general elections, meaning that the NLC has not been able to let its clout as a national workers’ platform rub off on the party. Otherwise, the LP, with or without an Obi, should be the most popular party in Nigeria. The fact that Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, under whose leadership of the NLC the LP was formed, ignored the party to pick the ticket of the ACN to run for the 2007 Edo governorship speaks so much in this regard.

The NLC has also not shown ownership of LP in terms of ideology. For instance, Peter Obi came with a manifesto that is essentially capitalist and neo-liberal, a total contradiction of the socialist ideology of the NLC upon which it founded the LP. This socialist ideology does not give room for neo-liberal policies like subsidy removal which was a prominent component of Obi’s manifesto. I’m also not sure several other candidates that flew the party’s flag in 2023 and before then made any effort to align their manifestos to the socialist ideals of LP as originally conceived.

But the truth is that the NLC cannot own and control a party it is not funding. Like other featherweight political parties in Nigeria, the party has over the years served politicians who failed to grab the ticket of any of the major parties. These displaced politicians fund the party just to the extent necessary to use it for the particular election they are contesting at the given time.

For the first time, the battle for the soul of LP has assumed so much national prominence just because its exploits in the last elections have raised the stakes higher. The NLC should not let itself be seen as courting opportunism, just like politicians. The politicians have little or nothing to lose in that public dance of shame, but the NLC has its credibility on the line. As a civil society group, it does not possess the army and the police possessed by the government; its major weapon of retaining followership is credibility.

Ajaero and his NLC should be advised to concentrate on their mandate of engaging their employees for better treatment of workers. They should resist all temptations to seek to join and become one with the employer.

Give it to politicians, in this romance of strange bed fellows, they know what they’re pursuing – to leverage the public influence of the labour movement to advance their one and only aim, which is attainment and retention of power. But what is NLC’s goal in that uneasy romance?

POSTSCRIPT: In reply to my last Sunday’s article on killing of soldiers in a Delta community and alleged reprisals by military personnel, a friend and former colleague of mine referred to an argument I had with him seven years ago where I stated my view that having arms in the hands of non-state actors is a very dangerous situation that is intolerable. He is assuming that my criticism of soldiers’ penchant for brutal reprisals on innocent civilians whenever their personnel are killed meant that I now believe that having guns in possession of state actors is as dangerous if not more dangerous than having it with non-state actors. No, I still stand on my position. State actors, no matter the level of lawlessness they may exhibit from time to time, are usually constrained by institutions and norms. Even if all official mechanisms of accountability fail, state actors, at least, are still answerable to public opinion. This is why the army would always deny whenever they’re accused of such brutality. But non-state actors do not care a hoot; they would make videos of their atrocities and share to scandalise the public. In the last four years, within the southeast, non-state actors, armed with mere light arms, have wrought unimaginable terror on us. If they were to be armed with artillery, rockets, tanks, bombers,.and other heavy equipment as the military is, who knows whether there will still be a geographical space called Southeast?

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.