Joe Ajaero, the President of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) is fast unravelling before Nigerians with a string of successive gaffees and posturing that has made many Nigerians begin to question his suitability as a leader of the organised labour movement. The NLC under Joe Ajaero is fast becoming lost in an identity crisis where it is increasingly erasing the thin line between its status as a Labour Union and its political identity as owners of the Labour Party.
Since its creation in 2002, the Labour Party (formerly known as Party for Social Democracy) has been the property of the NLC and the TUC (following its split from the NLC in 2005). However past leadership of the NLC and TUC since then have maintain a visible line between its primary role of fighting for the interest of workers in Nigeria and the secondary partisan interest of winning elections to implement its social democratic agenda. That line seem to have been obliterated by the current leadership of the NLC particularly, led by Mr. Joe Ajaero.
The partisan posturing of the Ajaero-led NLC was clear in the build up to the 2023 general elections where, as expected, Ajaero openly threw his weight behind the candidate of Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi and every partisan possible to discredit the ruling APC and bolster the chances of its candidate in the election. In the end, its weight proved too little to make LP win the presidential election.
The latest partisan action of the Joe Ajaero-led NLC is its misadventure in Imo State where a governorship election is due in 9 days time. The NLC political arm, the Labour Party is fielding a candidate for that election. Joe Ajaero is from Imo State and decided to use the NLC machinery to turn public opinion in the election against the clear frontline candidate and incumbent Governor of Imo State, Sen. Hope Uzodimma so as to help the LP candidate.
In the middle of October, with the election around three weeks away, Emperor Joe Ajaero out of the blues declared an industrial action by the NLC in Imo State starting from 1st November, 2023 to protest against what he described as ‘alleged violation and abuse of rights and privileges of workers in Imo state’. Ajaero’s NLC wrote a letter to South East and South South chapters of the NLC to start mobilising their members to ‘Occupy Imo’ on November 1st.
The State Government took the NLC to the National Industrial Court and the court issued an interim order restraining the Labour Union from embarking on strike in whatever guise until the next adjourned date (which is November 3). Emperor Ajaero however was hellbent on going ahead with the Occupy Imo protest in flagrant abuse of a subsisting Court order.
The Imo State Chapter of the NLC came out with a statement denouncing the proposed industrial action by its national body in Imo State and unequivocally stated that there was no basis for such industrial action or protest and that the Imo State government has been up to date in payment of salaries to workers. The state government reiterated that no civil servant is owed a month’s salary in Imo State not to talk of 20 months. It was obvious therefore that Ajaero’s Occupy Imo was purely a political stunt or indirect campaign rally for the Labour Party candidate, who is struggling to generate any mass support for his candidacy few days to the election.
It was therefore unsurprising that on November 1st, the NLC President, Emperor Joe Ajaero, like the proverbial stubborn fly that does not heed to advice came down to Imo State to embark on the Occupy Imo industrial action. In continuation of NLC’s brazen enforcement of industrial strikes through violence, Joe Ajaero led some national officials of the NLC to picket the Imo Airport, attempting to chase workers going about their legitimate duty from their duty posts in a bid to enforce their illegitimate industrial action.
Unfortunately, some of the workers were not interested in joining the strike and resisted the picketing by the Ajaero-led NLC team and in the process, Emperor Joe Ajaero was beaten by angry workers. It took the intervention of the police who saved the NLC President from possible mob action and took him under protective custody. A viral video later emerged showing the humbled Emperor Joe Ajaero, feigning ignorance of the existence of a valid court order restraining the NLC from embarking on any strike or protest at least till November 3rd, which was the next adjourned date. Ajaero was shamelessly saying he thought the court order had expired!
Emperor Ajaero did not even attempt to hide his clear partisan interest in Imo politics by obeying a court order. It appears Ajaero feels that he is above the law or that NLC is immune to court orders. This is what ordinarily a chieftain of an opposition party in the state is supposed to doing and not a national president of a major Labour center like the NLC. The desperation was obvious and the intent to cause chaos and tension in Imo State clear.
One would begin to wonder why it is in Imo State that Joe Ajaero decides to start NLC-led strikes to fight for workers’ welfare. Ajaero did not lead NLC to shutdown Abia, Bayelsa and many other states actually owing their workers salaries but decided to shut down Imo State over ghost workers that the State Government eliminated from its payroll. Is NLC under Joe Ajaero trying to pass a to the whole world that governments should not weed out ghost workers from the civil service or what?
Events of the past couple of weeks have exposed what a deep conflict of interest by an individual can turn an association into. Joe Ajaero is threading a very ignominious path that can only lead to an irreparable damage of the Labour Union he leads. The credibility of NLC is receiving immense battering because of Joe Ajaero. His show of shame and disregard for the rule of law in Imo State is just one out of a litany of gross abuse of his office as leader of the NLC.
If there is a leader that the Nigerian Labour Congress wish they never had, it is definitely going to be Mr. Joe Ajaero, he has brought disrepute to the Labour Union with many Nigerians especially workers losing trust and confidence in the ability of the NLC to protect their interests at all times without recourse to partisanship. Joe Ajaero from all indications is simply a Labour Party Chieftain wearing the garb of the NLC President.
