Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
President of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajaero, has said organised labour would not relent in its resistance to injustice by employers and exposure of every violation of International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention by government.
Ajaero spoke at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway, yesterday, as recipient of the 2026 Arthur Svensson International Award. He said the award would serve as launch pad for more vigorous struggle for workers’ welfare in Nigeria.
He stated, “Let me sound it clearly and let it echo in every corner of this hall and across the boardrooms in the world; the ruling class does not give you freedom.
“You take it; bloody-knuckled, with your lungs full of tear gas and your heart full of rage. At the back of our mind remains the cries and the pains of oppressed Nigerian workers. And we leave here with a promise; We will not rest; the Nigeria Labour Congress will not rest.
“We will deepen our organising among informal economy workers, platform economy workers, and the unemployed. We will resist every anti-labour law. We will expose every violation of ILO conventions. And we will win, because history is on our side.”
Speaking on his ordeal as a union leader, Ajaero said his journey since 2023 had been harrowing, adding that he has been “abducted, detained and brutalised by the government for insisting on the implementation of an agreement that protects the rights of workers”.
He stated, “I stand before you today not as a man, but as a symbol, a true symbol of millions of Nigerian workers, who wake up every morning not just to the smell of tear gas, the sound of sirens, and the cold silence of a state that preys on its own people but who go to work hungry and come back hungrier more emasculated than before they left for work.
“I receive this Arthur Svensson International Award; not as a trophy, not as a ribbon to hang on a lapel. Not at all. I receive it as a weapon, a weapon forged in the memory of a great Norwegian militant, Arthur Svensson, a man who knew that trade union rights are human rights, and that international solidarity is the only shield against the whip of rampaging multinational capital.”