Comrade Joe Ajaero, the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), is in the eye of the storm. Soon, he will become a prisoner of conscience. He is being dressed for the slab, ready for slaughter. Already, he has been adorned with the garb of a terrorist. The nameless and faceless international terrorist government said it has been looking for could well be Joe Ajaero. The plot to implicate him is thickening. The story, when it begins to unfold, will flow from only one end. Government will seize the stage with unpleasant tales. A beleaguered Ajaero will only be seen but hardly heard.
When the unfolding scenario comes on stream, those who were initially not certain about what befell Nigeria on February 25, 2023 will have a better understanding. They will come to terms with the fact that what took place on that day was no joke. It was state capture. It was the day hawks swooped on Nigeria for purposes of power grab. On that day, Nigeria’s electoral commission, having been thoroughly compromised, sold Nigeria to buccaneers for a mess of pottage.
In the manner of all power grabs, those who held Nigeria by the jugular on February 25 had a well laid-out plan. They were not going to entertain any form of dissent. This was in spite of the fact that the main players in the game of power grab were masters of dissent. Since the return of civil rule to the country in 1999, no government at the centre has reigned or ruled without incurring their ire. They were an irritation to the administrations that were, but they are not going to brook any form of opposition under their own dispensation.
This tendency was manifest early enough. When those who were muzzled out of the power game complained about the subterfuge and manipulation that rendered the outcome of the election questionable, they were accused of subversion and treason. For effect, government got the country’s secret police to harass them into submission. That has been the pattern since then. Those who have captured the Nigerian state will not allow anyone to contest the political space with them. Those who dare, by whatever means, must be decisively crushed.
Joe Ajaero’s NLC got a foretaste of the new government’s disposition to opposition elements when it called out Nigerian workers to a nationwide strike sometime in June. Organized Labour had, in the course of the strike, shut down electricity substations across the country, leading to nationwide blackouts. Government did not just frown on this, it accused Labour leaders of treason. Government did not, at that point, press any charges against the leadership of organized labour. But the authorities knew what they were doing. They were building up a case against labour leaders.
The Tinubu presidency got another chance to set up Labour following the #EndBadGovernance protests of August. Even though Labour played no role in the protests, government still carried out a preemptive strike. Its gestapo police invaded the headquarters of the NLC and carted away loads of documents. Nigerians did not understand why. Then the police, a few days after the incident, came up with an explanation. The force said its operatives were after an international terrorist who it claimed operates from the Labour house. It did not name or provide any information about the supposed terrorist. That was strange. The police created much room for doubt. Everything looked stage-managed. Many suspected that the police authorities were up to something sinister.
Days after the invasion of Labour house, the grand plan of the police has been unveiled. Joe Ajaero, the President of the NLC, has been invited by the police to answer questions bordering on criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, subversion and cybercrime. In the face of these grave allegations leveled against Ajaero, what we have before us is a case of the witch crying at night and the child dying in the morning. The action of the police directed against Joe Ajaero looks premeditated and contrived. It provokes the question: is Ajaero the international terrorist that the police said they are looking for? We will soon see what will play out when Ajaero submits himself to the police for questioning.
But we can hazard a guess as to where government is headed. It wants to put out Joe Ajaero. Government is not only scheming to remove him as the president of the NLC, it may be plotting as well to keep him in detention for as long as it can. If government succeeds in doing this, it would have destroyed and silenced organized Labour in Nigeria. In fact, there is reason to believe that government wants to shackle organized Labour by making Ajaero a scapegoat. The overall objective is to ensure that no Labour leader tries his hands again on any action that is suggestive of opposition.
Even though the Ajaero treatment is still incubating, government had, before now, sought to weaken Labour with its divide and rule strategy. Under the Tinubu presidency, the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have not been the best of partners. The TUC President, Festus Osifo, has had to disagree openly and bitterly with Ajaero over labour issues. The two labour unions have been working at cross purposes. Whereas Ajaero has been insistent on getting the government to give Labour its due, Osifo has been pliant. The TUC boss cuts the image of a compromised Labour leader. However, he manages to put up a show any time he appears in public with his garrulousness. Perhaps the ultimate test he will face will lie in how he will fight Labour’s cause in the absence of Ajaero.
In fact, the Ajaero incident will say a lot about how deep the Tinubu presidency has sunk into fascism. Ajaero is being hunted for his refusal to bury his head in the sand while the Nigerian worker moans and groans. The Ajaero disposition, in the eyes of government, is confrontational. A government that came to power through power grab will have none of that. It is feared that an Ajaero in the Labour saddle could be a stumbling block to government’s avowed march towards totalitarianism.
If government’s plot against Ajaero succeeds, then that will be the beginning of repression. It will become customary to label anybody who disagrees sharply with the suffocating ways of the present administration. Opposition of any sort will be interpreted as a crime against the Nigerian state. Those who will be so accused will go in for it. They will be put out of circulation so that government will find ample space to ride roughshod over the rest of the population.
QUOTE:
“The action of the police directed against Joe Ajaero looks premeditated and contrived. It provokes the question: is Ajaero the international terrorist that the police said they are looking for?”
