Hendrix Oliomogbe
Ahead of tomorrow, May Ist Workers Day Celebration, the Edo State Caretaker Committee chairman of the Edo State chapter of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Prof. Monday Igbafen has lamented the division within the labour union in the state.
In a statement in Benin City and made available to journalists, Prof. Igbafen insisted that the current labour environment in Edo cannot and must not inspire celebration.
The unionist noted that the historic day was neither meant to celebrate the conquest of workers’ autonomy, nor mask the strangulation of independent trade unionism.
He said that other state councils of the NLC across the federation may, perhaps, find reasons to roll out drums on May Day but not in Edo where the labour environment in the state cannot and must not inspire celebration.
Prof. Igbafen, who is also the Benin Zonal chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) lamented that the Edo NLC is in a quagmire and locked in a struggle against those he described as the combined forces of reactionaries, impostors, self-imposed leaders, political collaborators, and labour aristocrats.
He wailed: "Every genuine effort to reposition this council has been met with repression. Yet we are not in despair. The struggle continues.
"Let the record reflect this truth: No pretentious May Day organized, engineered, and bankrolled by compradors can ever keep alive the glorious philosophy of May Day."
The caretaker committee chairman said the gathering scheduled for tomorrow (May Ist) at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin City, is no true reflection of May Day, adding:
"It is a hoax. Genuine labour leaders and true workers have resolved to stay indoors to mourn, in silence, the present travails of labour in our state. Let the public be rescued from this deception. Let it be known: tomorrow’s assembly is powered neither by the legitimate leadership of the NLC in Edo State, nor by the National Leadership of Congress."
He decried a government circular dated April 22, 2026, which mandated the compulsory attendance for all civil and public servants and the deployment of state-funded buses to ferry workers from every corner of the state; and issuing veiled threats of sanction against defaulters.
Prof. Igbafen said: "This is not assistance; it is interference. It is a violent intrusion into the affairs of the trade union movement in Edo State. It is the very undue meddling that this Caretaker Committee has sworn to defeat."
While condemning in the strongest terms, the open takeover of the organization by the state government, he said that the caretaker committee does not however reject government support for a successful May Day.
He continued: "Over-politicization has brought the Edo NLC to its knees. But not beyond redemption. This Caretaker Committee, the legitimate leadership of the state council, has been misrepresented, despite our unwavering commitment to permanently resolve this crisis.
"Tragically, the same actors who drove Edo NLC into a coma now hide beneath the cover of government, resisting every peaceful path to resolution."
With a pantheon of labour leaders like Pa Michael Imoudu, Adams Oshiomhole, Festus Iyayi, Peter Ozo-Eson and a host of others, he said that Edo State resounds with pride in the annals of Nigeria’s labour movement.
Prof. Igbafen remarked that the legacy of these labour titans stands in stark opposition to the labour climate that presently obtains in Edo State.
He emphasized: "Pa Imoudu would not sanction it. Festus Iyayi would not recognize it. Peter Ozo-Eson would not sit in silence. They would not; they could not reckon with tomorrow’s gathering masquerading in the name of Workers’ Day. Their spirit rejects it. Their memory rebukes it.
"We must be urgently guided by the enviable feats of our past labour heroes. We must return to the path they carved. We must do those things, and only those things that will restore our collective freedom and reclaim our independence as organized workers, and as trade unions in Edo State."
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