Baba Aye's

The landscape of Nigerian elite politics might witness a turn for the better, in the view of a number of people, including some patriotic activists. This is with the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria, All Nigeria Peoples Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance and Congress for Progressive Change. These parties between them have ten governors in the federation. Along with Labour Party which has one gubernatorial seat, they are the parties that “control” states, apart from the Peoples Democratic Party. Senators of the Democratic Peoples Party have also joined senators from three of these parties (the APGA party machine seems to be distancing itself from the merger) in support of the emerging APC which is supposed to be an “alternative”, for the “people”. But how true is it that this “new”, so-called “mega party” of the bosses holds any hope for the working class? The executives and legislators of these parties have not been significantly different in any way from those of the PDP ...

Introduction The West African Health Sector Unions’ Network held its 10 th plenary session at the Rwandan Trade Unions Confederation headquarters on May 14-16, 2013. Members-unions were represented by statutory delegates from the: Burkinabe Midwives’ Trade Union; Health Services Workers’ Union of TUC Ghana (HSWU); National Private Sector Health Workers’ Union of Liberia (NPSHWUL); Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria (MHWUN); Rwandan Health Workers’ Union (RHWU) and; Sierra Leone Health Services Workers Union (SLEHWSU), while officials of the Public Services International Regional Office for Africa and Arab Countries, member-unions of the Rwandan National Coordinating Committee of the Public Services International as well as the national leadership of the Rwandan Trade Unions Confederation graced the opening session of the programme. The Representative of the Rwandan Hon. Minister of Public Services and Labour, presented a keynote address and declared the Conference op...

by Baba Aye Once again, workers across the length and breadth of Nigeria will join workers of all lands in commemorating May 1, as the International Workers’ Solidarity Day, better known as May Day. It is, or at least should be a day to reflect on our struggles as the toiling class, and to express our solidarity, with which we can bring to birth a new world on the ashes of the dying but far from dead old world of capital, which we live in today. This article (which draws from an earlier article of mine in The Health Worker of May 2007), attempts to put the origins and significance of this our day , in perspective. The celebration of the May Day as well as the practice of setting a day aside for the demonstration of workers solidarity, go way back beyond the historic events of Haymarket Square in 1886 and the subsequent resolution of the founding congress of the Second International in 1889, which initiated May I, with effect from 1890 as what we now know as the Internatio...

BEING PAPER DELIVERED AT THE 2 nd ANNUAL MHWUN GUEST LECTURE OF THE MEDICAL & HEALTH WORKERS’ UNION AT SHERATON HOTELS & TOWERS, ABUJA ON APRIL 11, 2013 _________________________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Team work has been recognised as the indispensable ingredient of success whenever and wherever people have to come together to achieve their personal goals because on their own, either they would be unable to achieve those goals at all or achieve them only sub-optimally. In the health profession where various forms of collaboration and hence interdependence are mandatorily required to achieve certain health outcomes, team work is the essential requirement for success.  This statement is confirmed by research evidence.   For example, the study into ‘ Teamwork in Healthcare: Promoting Effective Teamwork in Healthcare in Canada ’ by the Canadian Health Services Foundation in 2006 concluded that: ‘A healthcare system...