How Richards and Tinubu enabled general strikes in Nigeria, By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf

President Bola Tinubu [PHOTO: PRESIDENCY]

…Richards and Tinubu, embarked on policies aimed at revamping the economy at the expense of the working and other vulnerable peoples. Richards did so to generate funds for Great Britain to prosecute WWII. Tinubu did so clearly under instructions and directives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank… Both considered workers as inconsequential and powerless – just one per cent of the population, which is “inconsiderate” and “selfish”.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Sir Arthur Frederick Richards, the colonial governor-general of Nigeria from 1943 to 1948, share many things in common. However, in their commonalities, there are differences.

Richards was a British public servant appointed by the British Government. Tinubu was elected president by Nigerians. The former was politically stubborn. Wogu Ananaba wrote that Richards was a determined and fierce “fighter and rhetorician of no mean order,” who “by his strong-arm methods…earned the nickname of Richard the Lionheart and elicited the fighting spirit of the nationalists.”

This is the same with Tinubu, who has been described by Farooq A. Kperogi as, “a dogged, rugged, never-say-die fighter who would rather die fighting than give up a fight… his fights are often brutal and never-ending until he won.”

Tinubu is, however, a more tenacious fighter than Richards. He was elected president in a controversial match, refereed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In his party’s presidential primary, he defeated the sitting president’s candidates and successfully neutralised his predecessor’s strategies to ensure he lost the election.

He also overcame the abuses, intimidation, caricatures, and the manipulation of religion by the other presidential candidates to win the election. In addition, he defeated his opponents’ legal tussles to invalidate his electoral victory.

Richards and Tinubu inherited a battered and crisis-ridden economy. Richards as a result of the World War II. Tinubu as a result of his predecessor’s ineptitude, ethnicism and familism.

Richards met a radicalised labour movement, vibrant student movement, and rebellious Lagos-based nationalist politicians, with a highly critical press, which was devoted to the mobilisation of the entire society towards political independence.

Tinubu was luckier. He met a virtually crippled labour movement, with a predominantly docile leadership, and a poverty stricken and demoralised, but angry and radicalised, followership. He met a highly retrograde, renegade, opportunistic, cash-and-carry, anti-democracy and anti-development political class – of which he is an organic component, and even leads.

Richards and Tinubu organised general strikes against themselves. Richards motivated a General Strike in 1945, which paralysed the colonial economy, and lasted for 45 days in the Lagos area, at least 53 days in the Northern and Southern Provinces, and 74 days in the “British” Cameroons.

Richards, right from his assumption, saw workers as an insignificant minority of within the Nigerian population. He always insisted that the unions were unrepresentative, and lack national spread. This led union leaders to work assiduously to develop the movement at local and national levels.

Tinubu equally prompted a two-day general strike in June, which paralysed government businesses, cut electricity and water supply, shut down the aviation and banking sectors, and closed down schools and hospitals, amongst others.

Richards, right from his assumption, saw workers as an insignificant minority of within the Nigerian population. He always insisted that the unions were unrepresentative, and lack national spread. This led union leaders to work assiduously to develop the movement at local and national levels.

He also richly increased the salaries and allowances of the European staff and even backdated these raise, but refused to do same for African workers, on the ground that they were highly “unproductive”, and “thriftless”!

He maintained that any increase in the wages/salaries of Africans would be “dangerous”, and lead to “universal political unrest”, which the government would “have the greatest difficulty in controlling”! He equally posited that any rise in African wages, “may result in people modifying their customs and abandoning their traditional restraints”!

Richards, likewise, antagonised African businesses into supporting the strike morally, financially, materially and politically, by criticising the low wages they pay their workers, as against the higher wages of government and European businesses.

Richards further frustrated all attempts by “level-headed” labour leaders to compel government to honour the 1942 agreement, which states that wages/salaries would be revised “upwards or downwards as the cost-of-living increases or decreases.”

His hostilities towards labour compelled the “level-headed” executives of the movement to resign en-mass from their positions. As a result, Michael Imoudu took over the leadership of the movement and directed workers to embark on strike. And they faithfully did.

Tinubu started the making of a general strike on 29 May, 2023, when he was sworn-in as president. He removed the subsidy on petrol, thereby skyrocketing its official price by over 194.5 per cent. Diesel rose by 67.6 per cent. He also floated the naira, leading to its depreciation against the dollar by over 100 per cent. He increased the electricity tariff by 330.8 per cent.

These actions antagonised society. Food stuff rose by more than 40.54 per cent, and the inflationary rate by 33.9 per cent. Salaries/wages were massively devalued. Investment reduced. Manufacturers, market traders, farmers and other businesses were put under extreme pressure. Working and other vulnerable people resorted to the looting of food warehouses and food trucks. Resentment against the government escalated.

But Tinubu was much luckier. There were no radical and fearless labour leaders like Imoudu. No critical students’ unions (like those of the 1980s and early 1990s) to embark on nation-wide protest-demonstrations in solidarity with labour. No principled and radical politicians to capitalise on the workers’ grievances.

Tinubu also made the general strike happen by increasing the salaries and allowances of judicial officers by over 300 per cent, and those of political officers by 114 per cent. The labour unions demanded an upward review of the national minimum wage (NMW) to reflect cost-of-living-expenses (COLEs).

In 2023 alone, labour gave the government three notices of general strikes over workers’ interests. One was in July, 2023, which it called off in compliance with a court order. The second was three months later, which it called off following an agreement with government in the wake of a “wage award” of N35,000 to federal workers, the inauguration of a new minimum wage committee (NMWC), amongst others. The third was in November 2023 over the brutalisation of the NLC President, Joe Ajaero, in Owerri, allegedly by the Imo State government.

The NMWC, inaugurated on 30 January, became deadlocked on 31 May. Labour demanded a rise in the minimum wage from N30,000 (US$20) to N494,000 (US$336) to reflect the COLEs. Government rejected the proposal on the ground that it would increase its overall wage bill and adversely affect the economy. It proposed N60,000 (US$40), which labour described as a starvation wage and flatly rejected.

On 3 June, a general strike ensued. It was suspended for a week on 4 June, after government agreed to shift from its rigid position. The strike was indeed popular, with society supporting labour. It was largely seen as a struggle for democracy and development.

Conclusively, Richards and Tinubu, embarked on policies aimed at revamping the economy at the expense of the working and other vulnerable peoples. Richards did so to generate funds for Great Britain to prosecute WWII. Tinubu did so clearly under instructions and directives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Both considered workers as inconsequential and powerless – just one per cent of the population, which is “inconsiderate” and “selfish”.

Both committed the expensive errors of underestimating the authority of the labour movement, the power of workers, and the sympathy, empathy and support of society to workers and their movement.

But Tinubu was much luckier. There were no radical and fearless labour leaders like Imoudu. No critical students’ unions (like those of the 1980s and early 1990s) to embark on nation-wide protest-demonstrations in solidarity with labour. No principled and radical politicians to capitalise on the workers’ grievances.

This was how Richards and Tinubu enabled general strikes, against themselves. Somehow, they made history, in a repetitive manner.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: aaramatuyusuf@yahoo.com