23 - Trade Unions and Politics

Summary

The historiography of Nigerian independence from colonial rule has not often considered the role played by trade unions. This chapter seeks to correct this gap in the literature by tracing the history of Nigerian trade unions from the precolonial period to 1960 and beyond. Far from a British import, trade unions were rooted in local craft organizations that predated colonization. The protectionist goals of these organizations informed the development of the first formal trade union in Nigeria in 1912, named the Civil Service British Workers’ Union. This union and others soon expanded their purview from labor conditions to a broader anticolonial agenda, especially because of shared leadership and institutional affiliation with nationalist organizations. As trade unions became politically radicalized, nationalist groups borrowed tactics developed by the unions such as strikes and collective bargaining. Trade unions were instrumental in the nationalist movement and remain powerful engines of social and economic justice.