NLC President Joe Ajaero Rejects Governors’ Power to Ban Labour Unions, Criticizes Their Absence from States Amid Workers’ Struggles in Kogi
Lokoja, Nigeria – The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Joe Ajaero, has declared that no state governor has the authority to ban labour unions, emphasizing that union activities fall under the exclusive legislative list in the Nigerian Constitution.
Ajaero made this statement on Monday at a town hall meeting with workers at the NLC Secretariat in Lokoja, reacting to the proscription of unions in state-owned tertiary institutions by former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello. He stressed that unions are nationally registered entities and cannot be outlawed by state governments.
“No governor has the power to ban unions; you don’t ban what you don’t control. Unions are registered by the Registrar of Trade Unions at the national level. For administrative convenience, they have state branches, but that does not give any governor the right to proscribe them,” Ajaero said.
He also criticized the trend of governors residing permanently in Abuja while neglecting their states, noting that this practice hampers governance and leaves workers struggling with economic hardship.
The NLC president was in Kogi to inaugurate 10 Compressed Natural Gas buses aimed at easing transportation for workers. He assured that the congress would present workers’ grievances—including non-implementation of salary increases and a shortage of teachers—to the state leadership.
Workers at the meeting revealed that unions in Kogi’s polytechnics, universities, and colleges of education had been under proscription for over a decade, demanding urgent intervention from the NLC.
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