Trade unionism and governance in Nigeria: A paradigm shift from labour activism to political opposition

Abstract

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has, since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, been the platform for the Nigerian people to query government policies, actions and inaction, not only for the Nigerian working class, but the entire Nigerian peoples. Such policies include: privatization and commercialization of public institutions and services, incessant fuel hikes, retrenchments of workers and implementation of prescribed conditions and unfavourable policies of international monopoly finance capitalist institutions, etc. This paper investigates the activities of the Nigeria Labour Congress, as a credible opposition to the ruling party in Nigeria. It examines the conditions that necessitated this additional responsibility on the NLC as well as the nexus between credible opposition and workers’ welfarism. The paper argues that the emergence of the Labour Party in the country’s political landscape and its relative acceptance is underpinned by the functionality of its platform as the “mouthpiece of the masses.”

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