May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, was born of struggle. In 1886, American workers in Chicago took to the streets, demanding fair hours, dignity, and safety. Their defiance lit a flame that spread across continents, igniting the labour rights movement. Today, nations commemorate their courage not just with parades, but with policies that protect the worker.
But in Nigeria, what should be a celebration has become a cruel memorial not of what workers gained, but of all they have lost. Our May Day is no longer a tribute to progress. It is a requiem.
Here, the worker is not celebrated.
He is mourned.
And rightly so.
The Nigerian civil servant wakes each morning not with purpose, but with exhaustion. Exhaustion from wages that insult the very idea of labour. Exhaustion from a government that demands patriotism but offers nothing in return. Exhaustion from a life of unending sacrifice, punished by the very system it sustains. What is a May Day parade when the worker cannot afford rice? What is solidarity when salaries are erased by taxation, fuel hikes, and inflation before the month even begins?
There is rot eating through the soul of labour in this country, and we are watching it fester.
In Katsina, Plateau, Zamfara, Benue, Kaduna, and other regions scarred by insecurity, the Nigerian worker is not just underpaid, he is hunted. Teachers cross dangerous terrain to reach students. Health workers tend to patients in hospitals that double as warzones. Local administrators serve in fear, knowing a trip to work could be their last. Yet each May Day, we gather to clap for our own cruelty.
It is insulting.
It is enraging.
And it is a betrayal.
Worse still, the unions once the iron backbone of worker resistance have become brittle caricatures of their former strength. Once, the Nigerian Labour Congress roared for justice. Today, it mumbles press releases, trading revolutionary fire for political convenience. They no longer defend the worker. They negotiate behind curtains, posture before cameras, and retreat when the stakes are high.
The Nigerian worker is abandoned.
By the state.
By his union.
By the very system he labours to uphold.
Today, a teacher borrows to buy chalk.
A doctor skips meals to pay rent.
A local government clerk treks to work while oil wealth gushes into private vaults.
And yet, we say: Happy Workers’ Day.
It is not just tone deaf.
It is cruel.
Our working class carries a nation that continues to press its boot deeper into their spine. When people say “We can’t breathe,” it is not a metaphor. It is the lived experience of millions who are economically, emotionally, and existentially suffocated. They cannot breathe and no one is loosening the grip.
This is not governance.
This is not patriotism.
This is systemic abuse.
Our leaders, before you wave flags or deliver May Day platitudes, try living like the people you pretend to celebrate. Feed a family of five on ₦30,000. Commute without convoys. Enroll your children in public schools where teachers haven’t been paid in months. Fall sick without insurance or special access to foreign hospitals. Try walking even a day in a worker’s shoes.
If you can’t, then don’t wave flags on May Day.
Fix the wage structure.
Make food affordable.
Secure the roads.
Dignify the unions.
Rebuild trust.
Only then will May Day mean anything beyond empty fanfare and drumming over despair.
This day must not be a charade. It must be a commitment that never again shall the engine room of this nation be treated as disposable. May Day began with blood and courage. Let ours not end with silence and neglect.
Until then, don’t wish us Happy Workers’ Day.
Just fix the country.
Stephanie Shaakaa
08034861434
