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12 March, 2007
On the eve of critical Nigerian national and state elections, the country’s two national labour centers elected the two presidents of both ICEM’s oil workers’ unions to key positions.
Comrade Peter Esele, president of white-collar PENGASSAN Union, was elected President-General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) of Nigeria on 3 March in Lagos. The TUC is a newly-formed association of 22 unions, representing some 2.5 million senior staff in varying services and industries.
Two weeks earlier, Peter Akpatason, president of blue-collar NUPENG, was elected Trustee of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).
For the first time since 1999, the 38 affiliates of the NLC have new leadership. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole was given a rousing send-off as a dynamic trade union leader. Abdul Waheed Omar, president of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, won election as President of NLC on 17 February. Oshiomhole has left his trade union post to seek election as governor of Edo State from a multi-party alliance that includes the Labor Party and the Action Congress Party.
In a message to the NLC’s 9th National Delegates’ Conference at Abuja, Oshiomhole commended the role the four-million-member NLC has played in the enhancement of the welfare of workers, the consolidation of democracy inside Nigeria, and the war against corruption.
He said that democracy with all its imperfections was better than the most benign dictatorship. Oshiomhole added that the NLC has become a democratic, independent, socially responsible, and effective organisation that commanded the confidence of workers, trusted by the public, and respected by the government and employers.
The national and state elections in April will be held at a time when security for oil and other workers in Nigeria is seriously threatened, and when corruption among public officials is rampant. Lack of development and job opportunities for local people in the oil-rich Niger Delta has spawned scores of ransom kidnappings, while theft, or bunkering, of petrol from pipelines has jeopardized public security.
Last week, for instance, a communiqué issued by NUPENG typifies what workers face in Nigeria. The union issued a 21-day ultimatum to police in the Port Harcourt zone to halt the “illegal extortion of money from tanker drivers by the police.” The statement added that on most occasions, tanker drivers are “unnecessarily delayed to the point of breaking their resistance, to offer money as ransom before they are eventually released to continue with their journey.”
NUPENG contends that such extortion by police occurs under the guise of law enforcement fighting pipeline vandalism, when, in fact, NUPENG’s Port Harcourt zonal branch has evidence of police complicity in pipeline vandalism.
The two oil workers’ unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, have also warned against election rigging as the coming presidential and state governorships balloting draws near.