Tony Akowe in this report captures the intrigues that led to the emergence of the new helmsman of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and what the election bodes for labour struggles in the country
Going back in time to the return to democratic rule in 1999, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has always set the pace for conducting peaceful and democratic elections. The congress, which was under an administrator for several years, was returned to workers by the Abdulsalami Abubakar government and through a special delegates’ conference, saw Comrade Adams Oshiomhole holding the reins of leadership in 1999.
After eight years as the NLC President, Oshiomhole bowed out gloriously after series of confrontations with the Obasanjo government.
Genesis of crisis
Many Nigerians expected that those who took over from Oshiomhole would be equally vibrant, especially considering the fact that Abdulwahid Omar who succeeded him had worked as his deputy for eight years. But the Omar-led leadership, according to workers, did not quite meet their expectations.
Thus after eight years in the saddle, it was time for Omar and his team to bow out of office and pave the way for a new leadership to emerge. With the setting up of the Nasir Fagge-led Credentials Committee, the stage was set for the election of a new leadership for the congress. The 11th delegates’ conference which was to usher in a new leadership was convened for February 8-11, with the elections expected to hold on February 11.
A dream deferred
Expectedly, many Nigerians looked up to the election of a new leadership to take the congress to the next level and show the Nigerian government how to conduct a credible election.
But that was not to be as delegates to the conference disrupted the voting process midway into the first ballot on allegations that the process was being manipulated to favour a particular candidate.
Signs of trouble to come during the elections were first raised by the General Secretary of the National Union of Textiles, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria and a Vice President of the Union, Comrade Issa Aremu, who was one of the candidates for the post of deputy presidents.
At the close of nomination for the election, Aremu and two others were unopposed. But Aremu alleged that there were attempts to reopen nomination for some positions which was not in consonance with the rules.
He warned then that “any attempt to reopen the list of nomination will be unprecedented in the history of NLC’s delegates’ conferences and is deemed illegal, unconstitutional and certainly unacceptable.”
Aremu argued that “as a product of credible, free and fair election, the masses of Nigerian workers expect the NLC President to keep to his oath of office by ensuring that the coming election is held in accordance with the sprit and content of the Constitution of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). Any action to the contrary will be deemed illegal, unconstitutional and unacceptable.”
But the delegates’ conference in session decided to reopen the nomination process and cleared some of those candidates who were hitherto not part of the list of candidates published by the Electoral Committee.
Not happy with the goings-on, Aremu walked out of the conference, an action which did not go down well with many delegates and founding fathers of the congress. That was the first sign of trouble.
Also, during the build up to the elections, the Unity Forum, a group, was said to have emerged and attempted to bring together union leaders with a view to convincing them to cede the presidency of the congress to unions in the private sector on the argument that the outgoing president was from the public sector union.
Some of the union leaders who attended the first meeting were said to have backed out on the grounds that it was not a democratic way of electing a new leadership for the congress. It was gathered that while those who wanted the leadership conceded to the private sector union had a candidate for the presidency, those who backed out also had their own candidate for the same position.
It was with this mindset that many of the delegates arrived Abuja for the aborted elections. Even though there were supposed to be three candidates contesting the presidency, two major groups were visible: the restoration group and the redemption group.
Horse trading
Igwe Achese, one of the candidates for the presidency, decided to step down asking his supporters to give their votes to Joseph Ajaero. Even though he was to contest the presidency, the delegates’ conference decided to clear him to contest the post of deputy president.
With the disruption of the elections, founding fathers of the congress struggled to find a way out of the logjam. Past leaders of the congress and Nigerians at large were surprised that a body that tends to preach the tenets of democracy and claims to be a school of democracy could descend so low as not to allow the completion of a process.
Thus the leaders immediately went into series of consultations aimed at addressing the issues that led to the shameful logjam.
Omar told the media that the past leaders of the congress did not go to sleep and allow them do what they wanted, but engaged stakeholders and the aggrieved members in a series of meeting.
Even when the congress fixed a meeting of its National Executive Council for Wednesday, February 18, some of the aggrieved leaders threatened to go to court to stop Omar from presiding over the meeting even though his leadership has not been dissolved.
In attendance at the NEC meeting were former leaders of the union led by the founding president, Comrade Hassan Summonu, and his General Secretary, Ali Musa Dangiwa, Comrade Ali Ciroma, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Comrade John Odah, among others.
Inside sources told The Nation that the Edo governor who Summonu described as Labour’s soldier in the political battle field appealed to those concerned to allow peace to prevail.
He was said to have told them that their action of disrupting the elections and breaking the ballot boxes has brought the name of the congress into disrepute and asked them to return the congress to its past glory.
After several hours of meeting, they all agreed to reconvene the delegates’ conference to elect a new leadership for the congress. Omar who addressed journalists then said: “We have agreed that a new election will hold on March 12, 2015 at the Eagles Square in Abuja. We have taken far-reaching decisions to ensure that peace reigns at the re-convened election. We want to apologise to all Nigerians over the unfortunate incident that led to the cancellation of the election. We want to state categorically that it is not in our character to do that.”
However, Aremu was to raise another alarm a few days to the March 12 date for the new election.
Aremu said, “If we must ensure a successful election and avoid the crisis that marred the previous election, basic rules and practices guiding elections must be strictly followed. There must be fairness and equal level playing field for all contestants. We call on the NLC General Secretary to make sure the new election is not marred with the mistake of the past so that we can have a free and fair election. We raise this point against the background of our observation from the new list of contestants circulated to all industrial unions by the General Secretary of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Dr. Peter Ozo-Eson. The list of contestants did not follow alphabetical order even when the General Secretary clearly stated in the letter dated February 26, 2015 to all the unions that accreditation of delegates will be based on alphabetical order. The contestants’ names were listed in a way that it suggests partisanship. We warn that all lovers of the labour movement must be interested in what is going at the NLC. Nigerian workers and indeed all Nigerians, labour veterans and friends of labour will not accept another so-called “printing errors” (such as multiple ballot papers for a contestant). We hereby demand that the circulated list of contestants should be withdrawn and a fresh list of contestants arranged in alphabetical order be reissued to all affiliate unions by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). This should also reflect in the ballot papers. The NLC General Secretary should stop turning comrades against comrades. There should be strict application of basic rules and practices to avoid the ugly experience of the recent past.”
The Nation discovered that the unions were arranged on the stand in an alphabetical order and was concluded at about 5.00pm. It was also discovered once inside the square, most of the delegates were not allowed to go outside. Provision was made for feeding inside the square for the delegates.
Actual voting started at about 5.00pm on Thursday, March 12 in a batch of 15 delegates. This was later increased to 30 delegates voting at a time. The tables used for voting were adequately spaced to avoid the delegates influencing themselves during voting. This lasted till about 3.30 am.
Counting of the ballot, however, started at about 5.30 am with the post of auditor which had eight candidates contesting for the three positions. In an unprecedented manner, the counting lasted till about 5.00pm.
Edo State governor who spent the night at the square with the workers returned to the square at about 9.30 am only to be told that they had not made any headway. With only the Electoral Committee Chairman sorting out the ballot and every other person marking the result sheet, it was evident that the counting was going to last the whole day, especially when the polling agents raised issues at every interval which always took time to resolve.
Eight small buckets were later provided to speed up the exercise. For every vote obtained by the candidate, one need was dropped into a box marked with the candidate’s name. The counting process was also to be decentralised with each electoral committee member handling one position, when the police threatened to withdraw their men due to delay of the entire exercise with the chairman handling the sorting of the presidential ballot with the polling agents of the contestants and security operatives and the media watching at close range.
However, while the process of counting of the ballots was ongoing, the polling agent representing Joseph Ajaero collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital, but that did not stop the process as Ayuba Wabba, who was sponsored by the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria was declared winner of the elections after scoring 1,695 votes, while Mr. Ajaero polled 1,140 votes.
Peters Adeyemi, Najeem Yasin and Kiri Mohammed as deputy presidents. The three vice-presidents are Asugbuni Amaechi, Dusunma Lawal and Oyelekan Lateef, while Boniface Isok was elected the congress trustee, and Sefiyav Mohammed, financial secretary. The auditors included Anchaver Simeon, Leke Success and Yemisi Gbamgbose, while the ex-officio officers are Amina Damesi and Comfort Oko.
The Nation check revealed that out of the 43 industrial unions which took part in the elections, the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, which nominated Mr. Wabba, controlled the bulk of the delegates (526), while the National Union of Electricity Workers, which sponsored Mr. Ajaero, had 471 delegates.
The Nigeria Union of Teachers had the third highest number of delegates (383), with the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions having 210 delegates; the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees 187 delegates, and National Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, 182 delegates.
Mr. Wabba’s camp was said to have gotten the upper hand after it successfully wooed most of the unions with the largest delegation to its side.
However, even though many of those who witnessed the elections believed that it was generally transparent, those who lost did not believe so. Before the results were announced, polling agents representing the Ajaero group refused to sign the results.
According to Ajaero and his group, “rules were changed midway into the elections. The credential committee wrongly validated the ballot papers found in boxes not meant for the position being contested for, contrary to the rules. These ballot papers ought to have been invalidated. There was a scandalous deficit of basic electoral materials such as tallies.
“As a result, counting of votes was stopped for three hours to allegedly enable the general secretary of NLC and his team to allegedly go to the market to buy some electoral materials. In the process, there was a crisis of confidence and legitimate suspicion of manipulation. It took two working days for an election fixed for only one day to count the votes of 3,119 delegates from the 43 industrial unions affiliated to the congress. Due to poor electoral arrangement, sorting of ballot papers turned out to be cumbersome and opened to manipulations and distortions with non-members of the Credential Committee dictating the patterns of counting.
The Nation, however, observed that all the contestants who lost their elections were party to the call for a special delegates’ conference to elect new leaders. It was gathered even before the commencement of the elections, all the contestants had met with the leadership and elders of the congress where all contending issues were ironed out and all the aspirants agreed to abide by the results of the elections. The new president of the congress told a news conference Monday in Abuja that his leadership has already extended a hand of fellowship to the aggrieved members.
As at press time, Ajaero and other aggrieved NLC members held a special delegate conference in Lagos, where Ajaero was elected a s President of the splinter group, a development, analysts have argued will set the labour union backward.
