The 11th delegates’ conference of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which was expected to produce a new set of officers ended in a fiasco in Abuja on Thursday, February 12.
The International Conference Centre, venue of the conference, was thrown into confusion after some aggrieved contestants and their supporters suddenly became violent, hijacking and destroying ballot boxes even as the voting was still underway.
The conference, which began Tuesday, was organised to elect new leaders for the country’s central labour union following the expiration of tenure of the current executives.
Three candidates, the National President, Medical and Health Workers Union, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, who is also the National Treasurer of the NLC; the General Secretary of the National Union of Electricity Employees, Mr. Joe Ajaero, who is also a Deputy President of the NLC; and the President, Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, Mr. Achese Igwe, had put themselves forward to be elected as Abdulwaheed Omar’s successor.
Trouble started on Wednesday night as delegates were casting their ballot when some discrepancies were said to have been observed in some ballot papers
Some of the delegates who claimed that the ballot papers were deliberately printed to facilitate rigging resorted to self-help, using chairs at the venue to combat fellow delegates.
According to the aggrieved unionists, while some of the ballot papers had the name of Wabba in three places, Ajaero’s name was either not on the ballot papers or had no serial number.
Ajaero’s supporters claim that the organisers of the election may have deliberately allowed the errors in the ballot papers to ensure Wabba’s victory.
Even before the fisticuffs, there were alleged breaches of the union’s constitution. The National President of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Najeem Yasin, was cleared by the delegates’ conference to contest as a deputy president even after the Credentials Committee headed by the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nasir Fagge, and Secretary, Emma Ugboaja, had disqualified him on the ground of improper filling of nomination form.
The clearance led to the stepping down of Achese for Ajaero, which was also a violation of the union’s constitution but which was allowed, nevertheless, because of the waiver earlier granted Yasin.
These serial infractions led to the protest by the General Secretary of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Issa Aremu, who not only led his union to walk out on the conference but threatened legal action.
It is a shame that NLC delegates could not hold a successful election. Yet, these are people who superintend over the affairs of the country’s workforce. Worse still, is the fact that some of thr fiencest critic of our country’s political leadership come from the labour community.
As the nation prepares for testy elections next month, the union ought to have used the opportunity to tell politicians how things ought to be done. NLC leaders ought to be the conscience of the country, the moral baritone in the country’s rancorous electoral din.
Now, they have bungled it. What moral right would NLC have to chastise the political class tomorrow for not conducting free and fair elections?
Now that the inability to elect Omar’s successor has plunged the congress into a constitutional crisis as the tenure of the former President has lapsed, on what moral footstool will NLC leaders stand tomorrow to condemn politicians if the March 28 and April 11 elections go awry?
It is indubitable that the yet to be conducted general elections may have been the real cause of the NLC brouhaha as the politicians may have divided the labour unions by infiltrating its ranks in their attempt to control the union. So, in a sense, the crisis rocking NLC may be nothing other than a proxy war between the two leading political parties in the country – the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All progressives Congress (APC).
But whatever is the case, it is a shame that Nigerian workers could not conduct free, fair and credible poll to elect their leaders.