Workers’ Day in Nigeria: A Day for the Unemployed

By Abdul Mahmud

Exactly a decade, three years, and a day to the eve of a Workers Day, I sat with my comrade and friend, Uche Onyeagocha. We spoke about the fate of Nigerian workers since the return to civil rule. In the middle of our discussion, Uche, lamenting their condition, said: “Mahmud, to talk about workers without talking about joblessness is dishonest. We cannot celebrate labour in a country that has no work. In our peculiar reality, the Workers Day, while highlighting the plight of millions without jobs or hope, should be a day for the unemployed”.

Our country is once again celebrating another Workers Day, which once had something of meaning, something of pride, of unfurling of banners, raising of fists in the air, now feels like a joke. A cruel joke played on our workers. The screams of “Patria o Muerte, Venceremos”- homeland or death, we will overcome – still rent the air. The sound of brass bands still plays. But, the meaning that the day once lent to itself has since vanished. The stadia and parade grounds are still filled with banners and pious speeches. But the workers’ souls are empty. The parades continue. The workers’ rallies are now little more than symbolic pageantries characterised by dances that do little to alter the conditions of the working class. But the hope is gone.

Forget the nonsense of Joy is Coming. There is no joy left. Only pain. Only hunger. Only memories of better times. Workers become ghosts. Present, yet invisible. Moving, yet stuck. Breathing, but barely living. What is a worker whose wages buy nothing? What is labour without dignity? In our country, a job does not always mean a living. Employment does not always mean escape from poverty. Work, for many, is simply another name for suffering.

The officialdom calls May 1st Workers’ Day. The streets know it by another name. Go outside, look around. Who do you see? Those that the officialdom describes as workers. Teachers owed salaries for months. Nurses who buy their own gloves. Streets’ sweepers who live under bridges. Graduates selling Gala and Lacasera in traffic. There are jobs, the officialdom screams. But the jobs are fake. The statistics lie.

The National Bureau of Statistics claims our unemployment rate is low. It says only 4.3% – a decrease from 5.0% in Q3 of 2023 – are unemployed. But how? On what planet? In what country? By what measure? If a man sells Zobo for one hour a week, he is counted as employed. If a woman fries akara by the roadside every two days, she too is employed. These statistics are based on the warped NBS methodology that considers anyone who works for at least an hour a week as employed. Wow! The numbers hide the truth, and conveniently conceal the mass unemployment that characterises the labour market. Here: the NBS methodology, illogical, defies commonsense. A fixation wrapped in statistical jargon, dressed as logic and facts. It is a trick. A magician’s act.

Ours is a country of the jobless. Of the hopeless. Of the underpaid and the undervalued. The real unemployment rate? No one knows. But the evidence is everywhere. Young men on every street corner. Women roaming markets without stalls. Graduates writing CVs with no addresses to send them. A country bleeding potentials. Even those with jobs suffer. Salaries delayed. Pensions denied. Promotions frozen. Hospitals without medicine. Schools without teachers. Offices without electricity. Even Aso Rock, the symbol of presidential inaction, is even going solar. The Nigerian worker does not work to live. He works to survive. Sometimes, barely. The government promised to pay federal workers the minimum of ₦70,000. What is the value of ₦70,000 in today’s world? It cannot buy a bag of rice. It cannot pay rent in any city. It cannot fuel a car for a week. Yet that is what Tinubu calls the minimum wage. A shameful number. A national embarrassment. The cost of living rises every day. Prices double. Salaries do not move. Inflation has no respect. It eats without warning.

Under President Bola Tinubu, things have worsened. The economy is in chaos. The fuel subsidy is gone. The naira floats like Sapele timberlogs on the River Ethiope. Prices of food and transport have exploded. The poor cannot breathe. The middle class is gone. The rich build new fences. Tinubu’s policies follow the gospel of the market. But the market is cruel. The market has no heart. It serves profit, not citizens. It listens to economists in foreign suits. It does not hear the cries in Ojuelegba or Mararaba. It has no time for the woman carrying basket of tomatoes on her head. Or the boy who walks five kilometres to school.

It is neoliberalism that Tinubu calls it. Deregulate everything. Let the market decide. Cut subsidies. Cut support. Cut life. Build coastal roads that lead only to his pocket and the pocket of his crony, Gilbert Chagoury, not citizens. Build projects, not futures. That is the vision. That is the madness.

But a country is not a magic show. It is not the magician’s bag. It is people. Human beings with dreams. With bones that ache. With children to feed. With hopes that die quietly in traffic. The workers suffer still. The youths japa. The factories close. The shops shrink. The streets fill themselves with despair. Our country is turning into a marketplace of sorrow.

Where are the unions? Where is labour? Where is the rage? Where is the roar of yesterday? The Nigerian Labour Congress used to be a lion. Now it is an efulefu. A folded leaflet. A press release at noon. A handshake with politicians. Union leaders now sit with those who crush workers. They smile over tea. They tweet from air-conditioned offices. But the workers sweat. The workers cry. The workers are alone.

The Workers’ Day has become theatre. A parade of uniforms and speeches. No soul. No fire. No fight. Only routine. Only performance. But the time for silence is over. Workers must speak. Loudly. Clearly. Angrily. They have nothing to lose but their chains. There is nothing to fear. Fear has already stolen everything. Fear has taken food. Taken shelter. Taken the future. What more can it take? How about the youths? Our country’s ticking time bombs. They are everywhere. On bikes. In kiosks. At betting shops. In embassies. Holding passports. Holding dreams. Many flee the country. Japa. That’s the dream now. To leave. To run. They are all running from a country that eats its own. The NYSC which holds the youths to wishful dreams has become a ritual with no reward. One year of service. Then what? Years of waiting. Of joblessness. Of rejections. Of regrets. The certificate means nothing. The future is blank. Our country breaks its youth. Then, it blames them for failing, for falling from non-existent grace to grass.

A country that cannot provide jobs for its young is doomed. A country that watches its future rot has no future. The time has come to say it plainly: this country has failed its workers. It has failed its youth. It has failed itself.

On Workers’ Day, there should be mourning. Mourning for the jobs lost. Mourning for the salaries stolen. Mourning for the factories closed. For the dreams buried. For the families torn by poverty. For the parents who cannot pay fees. For the children who go to bed hungry. There must be anger too. Not the kind that burns buses. But the kind that fuels action. That writes petitions. That mobilises. That organises. That doesn’t agonise. That demands. Citizens must ask: what is the value of labour in our country today? What does work mean in a country where working does not bring food? Where efforts do not bring dignity? Where contributions bring no recognition? There is wealth in Nigeria. There is oil. There is gold. There is gas. But the wealth is hoarded. The oil is stolen. The gold is smuggled. The gas is flared. The rich build castles. The poor build shacks. Inequality is the national flag.

Let the Workers’ Day become a day of protest. Not a day of praise. Let it be a day of truth. A day of reflection. A day when workers stop pretending. When the unemployed stop clapping for suffering. When citizens start shouting. This country is at a crossroads. It cannot continue hurtling down the road of elite greed and mass misery. It must choose a new path. One built on justice. On fairness. On work that pays. On leadership that listens. Workers must be respected again. The unemployed must be seen. The youths must be given a chance. The unions must find their voice. And the government must remember: no country grows when its people are broken.

Let us not say “Happy Workers’ Day.” There is no happiness here. Only struggle. There is pain. There is no respite. Workers’ Day must speak not only for the employed, but also for the unemployed, the jobless, the forgotten, and for those trapped in silence and idleness. They must be told: You are not invisible. Your struggle is known. Your worth is unquestionable. Until Workers’ Day is truly a celebration of labour, of jobs, of justice, let it remain what it is: a loud cry from the silent mouths of oppressed workers who have nothing but their silence and chains to lose. Today’s not Workers’ Day. It is the Day of the Abandoned. The Day of the Betrayed. The Day of the Unemployed.