The reply to these provocations was given at a huge mass rally in Lagos where thousands of workers swore on their tribal oath “by our mother Africa and the departed spirits of our ancestors” not to return to work until their demands were granted. Their five demands were: pay the strikers for the period during which they have been on strike; guarantee their pensions and other rights; no victimization of strikers; immediate release of the arrested strike leaders; grant the original demand for a 2/6 minimum wage. The militancy of the workers was further demonstrated when Bankole, president of the NTUC, advised the strikers to return to work. This false leader was immediately repudiated and expelled from office. He was replaced by A.O. Imoude, former president of the Railway Workers Union, who had been released from four years detention and exile on June 2. Imoude had been imprisoned on grounds that his labor activities interfered with the progress of the war. On his release he returned to Lagos riding on a white horse where he was received like a conquering hero and publicly acclaimed by thousands of workers. The anti-imperialist movement pressed the battle on still another front. In protest against the re-enactment of the rigid press censorship and suppression of free opinion, the African Pilot and the Daily Comet , the two leading Nigerian daily papers, appeared with their editorial pages blank. These two papers were later suppressed because they criticized those union leaders who advocated that the strikers return to work.
The European community threatened to lynch the editor, Azikiwe. Azikiwe cabled to labor, Negro and progressive organizations in the United States and Great Britain for aid on his behalf. In response to his appeal cablegrams of protest were sent to the British Colonial Office and the Governor of Nigeria by James P.
Cannon, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, Walter White for the NAACP, and R.J. Thomas president of the CIO United Automobile Workers. In defense of the actions of Governor Richards, the Colonial Office in London issued a statement that the Secretary of State for Colonies “is satisfied that the measures taken by the Nigerian government to combat the rise in the cost of living are the best possible under the circumstances. Any increase in the cost of living allowance would not only be operated to the detriment of the wage earners themselves, but would result in
the deterioration of the general economic situation.” While the British Government was trying to break the strike, significant demonstrations of solidarity were held in England. In London over 2,000 Africans and other colonial seamen, war plant workers and students held a mass rally in support of
Nigerian labor and collected about $2,000 to aid in feeding the wives and children of the strikers. Sixty telegrams were sent to world trade union organizations and unions in America, India and the West Indies by the Pan-African Federation seeking support for the Nigerian workers. A similar mass meeting held in Manchester collected over $500 for the strike relief fund.
* * *
The Nigerian Trade Union Congress which led this tremendous strike struggle to victory is only two years old. It was organized in August 1943 when 200 delegates from 56 unions, representing over 100,000 workers, met in Lagos, the capital of Nigeria. The Congress issued a manifesto declaring that the workers of Nigeria were entitled to the full rights of democratic government, including free speech, collective bargaining, adequate wages, equality of opportunity and protection against ignorance, want, disease and exploitation. The
Congress adopted a program calling for the nationalization of mining, timber and other important industries, labor representation on the Legislative Council and the Municipal
Councils, social insurance, education and housing for workers and protection of workers’ health. At its second annual conference in August 1944 there were delegates from 64 unions and the membership had increased
to over 400,000. The Nigerian Trade Union Congress now has 86 affiliated unions with a membership of over 500,000. The vigorous proletariat of Nigeria is new and young. The
number of wage and salaried workers in Nigeria in 1939 was only 183,000. 37.5 percent were employed by the government, 37.5 percent in mining and 25 percent by commercial firms, agriculture and other private interests. Today it is estimated that there are about one million wage and salaried workers, more than half of them organized in unions.
Source - Robert L. Birchman
Class Struggles In Nigeria
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