Lola: NLC's birthday mate




Today is yet another day on the calendar with both personal and political significance to me.

On this day 20 years ago, the Labour Party (LP) held its Founding Convention, with great hope which I captured in my article for the Labour Factsheet titled “We Have Arrived.” I was elected into the party’s leadership for the first time, with resounding applause.

I remember a supposed journalist from a fake newspaper coming up to me to ask a question (I was quite sure he was SSS). His question was why did I get clearly the loudest ovation of those elected even though I emerged as National Auditor, a position that would be considered the least weighty on the NWC?

My response was straightforward, I’d spent the better part of my 33 years at the time in selfless service to the working class first as a student activist across three campuses for almost a decade and then for five years as a full-time trade unionist, including as NLC Lagos State Chair (Caretaker Committee) at a crucial point in the Council’s life.

I still had a case of contempt hanging on my head at the time for ordering the court bailiff that tried to stop our State Congress in 2003, to be thrown down the stairs of Mainland Hotel, Lagos.

But the greater and greatest significance of today to me came much earlier, though I didn’t know that when both events took place.


On 28 February 1978, today’s Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) was birthed at Ibadan. That same day, some 140km away, Lola the woman I love, was born...

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