On June 4, 1986, exactly forty years ago, history was made when the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), led by the humble, soft-spoken, justice-minded, and lion-hearted Alhaji Ali Chiroma, embarked on a nationwide protest march. This decision, as I previously discussed in my Premium Times article of April 10, 2024, titled 'Ali Chiroma and the 4th of June protest,' was triggered by the 'Ango-must-go' protest at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, on May 22 and 23, 1986. That protest led to the murder and injury of several students and children, sparking nationwide student demonstrations that resulted in more fatalities due to the state's brutal response.
The Spark: ABU Protests and Official Indifference
The insensitivity of ABU Vice Chancellor Professor Ango Abdullahi, who stated he had 'no regrets inviting the police' and that 'only four people died,' infuriated the populace. The situation worsened with the fascist rationalization of violence by Kaduna State Police Commissioner Nuhu Aliyu, who claimed that 'the law authorised them (Police) to shoot.' The Babangida military regime's lackadaisical attitude, its refusal to comment on the matter three days later, and its failure to pacify the student movement or console the parents of police casualties deepened the crisis.
The government's refusal to meet popular demands—that Abdullahi, Aliyu, and Education Minister Professor Jibril Aminu be suspended, and that all arrested and detained students be released—angered the NLC, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The establishment of a panel by the military junta to investigate the crisis, apportion blame, and make recommendations did not pacify these groups. Instead, it irritated them, partly because the 'history of (such) panels has shown that they are used to diffuse tension and cover-up the situation.'
NLC's Declaration and Military Backlash
The NLC's outright rejection of the Abisoye panel and its resolution on May 28, 1986, to declare Wednesday, June 4, 1986, as a Day of National Mourning, to be marked by peaceful marches by workers throughout the country, infuriated the military despots. By this declaration, the NLC supported NANS and ASUU's rejection of the panel, demonstrated its respect for human lives, and showed its commitment to protecting and advancing human, civil, and democratic rights. It also registered its commitment to strengthening the unity of popular and democratic forces against undemocratic, non-democratic, and anti-democracy forces.
The military despots were visibly angered. They thundered that the NLC declaration 'was most irritating and annoying threat. That Congress has made itself a nuisance almost of every issue.' They added that the proposed march was 'a direct challenge' to their 'authority and legitimacy' and were determined 'to meet the challenge with all the resources at its disposal.' They not only threatened but acted by mobilizing the entire armed forces, police, and security forces. In Chiroma's words, the despots declared 'an all-out war, by land, sea and air against unarmed workers, more serious than even shoot-at-sight order.'
Compromise and Abortion of the March
Partly due to the tyrants' declaration of war, but largely because of immense pressures from opportunists, careerists, fear-mongers, and fifth columnists within the NLC, a compromise was reached to scale down the protest march to only representatives of labour unions. Even so, the despots took no risks. On June 3, at about midnight, the national and some state NLC secretariats were seized, occupied, and declared 'SECURITY ZONE, KEEP OFF' by combat-dressed, battle-ready, fierce-looking, and heavily armed personnel. They also arrested and detained labour and student leaders nationwide. Heavily armed police guarded higher institutions of learning despite their closure. Security forces littered the streets in Lagos and other towns. Army armored tanks took over strategic buildings and places. Helicopters hovered over the city. Thus, the military junta aborted the June 4 protest march.
But it was not only the June 4 march that was aborted; the First Independence Movement (FIM), with all its successes, was also virtually aborted with June 4. Whether FIM survived the abortion is debatable, but what is undebatable is that today, FIM is of no consequential value, has outlived its historical relevance, and is moribund, parasitic, decaying, and unsalvageable.
Aftermath: Neoliberalism and Labour's Decline
The junta's official adoption on June 27, 1986, of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) structural adjustment program—or neoliberalism, as it is widely called today—negated the developmental, political, and democratic gains of FIM. The devaluation of the naira and the privatization of state-owned companies (SOEs) led to the legal seizure of collective resources and companies. Our commonwealth was individualized. SOEs disappeared. Workers were massively retrenched, in some cases without compensation or pension benefits. The NLC was dissolved by the despots in March 1988 on the grounds that it 'has metamorphosed into two ideological lines.' A multinational company personnel manager, Chief Michael Ogunkoya, was imposed as NLC 'sole administrator' to restructure it. ASUU was disaffiliated. The NLC-NANS alliance was unilaterally dissolved. Chiroma was compulsorily retired. NLC radical forces were neutralized. Rightwing, power-drunk, money-minded, anti-workers, pro-state, and highly exhibitionistic labor aristocrats, headed by Pascal Bafyau, were imposed on the NLC and workers.
To this day, labour has not recovered from the disasters visited upon it by the military and the labor aristocrats within it. The NLC suffered tremendously under Adams Oshiomhole and Ayuba Wabba. Under the latter, the NLC became the exact opposite of what it was under Comrades Hassan Sunmonu and Chiroma. General strikes were called without concrete gains.
NANS: From Vanguard to Captured
In yesteryears, NANS withstood state repression, including proscriptions, dissolutions of its constituent unions, and the regular suspension, rustication, and expulsion of its leaders and activists from school. Arrest, detention, trial, and imprisonment of its leaders and activists did not drastically affect its opposition to the despots. NANS became highly radicalized, initiating, organizing, and leading popular street struggles against military authoritarianism and neoliberalism. Undoubtedly, NANS remained the 'voice of the voiceless,' the 'loudspeaker of the oppressed,' and the vanguard of the struggle for democracy and development.
Tragically, since the late 1990s, NANS has mainly been seized by violent student groups financed, armed, protected, and enabled by state security forces and lumpen politicians. Its leaders became spokespersons, campaign agents, propagandists, and lumpens of Nigerian lumpen politicians. Today, NANS leaders are frantically hostile and antagonistic to anything development, democracy, or social justice.
A Lost Era: Unity and Freedom
In yesteryears, Nigerians were united on basic issues like the right to life and movement. Human lives mattered. Not so today. No mass-based or professional organization will stand up to defend human lives as the NLC, NANS, and ASUU did in the 1980s. Under military despots, there was freedom of movement without fear. Student activists mostly traveled at midnight, just to beat the monitoring of security forces, for aluta (struggle) purposes. They returned safely to their campuses the next day to continue their studies and aluta. Today, the fear of bandits and terrorists, who kidnap children and adults, security and non-security people for fantastic ransom, is the beginning of wisdom. With a constitution, Nigerians cannot freely move, work, play, learn, socialize, or sleep well. There was a country!
Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet).
