From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Organised Labour yesterday asked the Federal Government to increase the current retirement age of workers from 60 to 65 years.
This is as it expressed deep frustration over the state of the nation, declaring that civil servants feel betrayed by those entrusted with governance.
Speaking during the 2025 Workers’ Day celebration in Abuja, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and that of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), accused government of failing to prioritize workers’ welfare and deliberately subjecting them to poverty.
Jointly reading a speech, NLC and TUC presidents, Joe Ajaero and Festus Osifo said: “Nigerian workers are not happy! Nigerian workers are hungry. Nigerian workers are suffering massively. We feel betrayed by the very people whose duty it is to ensure that we maintain a balance. We want to know whether it is a crime to be a worker in Nigeria? Why are we deliberately being made poor? Why are we being ground to the dust? We have become one of the poorest workers on earth! Mr. President, Governors and Private Employers – where is justice in the Wages that you pay us?”
They stressed: “It appears that the harder we work, the poorer we become. Everywhere, we turn, we are slapped with indignity! Everywhere we seek succour, the rug is pulled out of our feet with glee! Should any worker be working in poverty? Should any worker be a beggar while he is working to keep the wheel of production; the wheel of wealth creation rolling?
Should the worker-patriot be condemned to constant tears and weeping because he works for the good of the fatherland? Where is the conscience of the nation? Where has the basic ideals of governance gone? Is there social justice in poverty?”
The labour leaders lamented the worsening economic conditions, rising inflation, and stagnant wages that have left millions of Nigerians in extreme poverty.
Organised Labour also used the May Day platform to decry the persistent failure of the government to fix Nigeria’s energy sector. Despite claims of progress, the unions said the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries “remain in a state of coma,” despite huge investments and repeated government assurances.
“We are workers in the various organisations running the Petroleum and Power sectors, we know where the skeletons are buried. We know what works. Government if it really wishes to deliver an effective Energy sector to Nigerians, should sit down with critical stakeholders to turn around this sector so that it will play its critical role in Nigeria’s economic development.
“Energy poverty continues to hold Nigeria in its stranglehold. While we are blessed with enough natural resources to drive a robust energy sector, we have lacked the requisite leadership capacity to make it a reality. We are still at a great loss on how to explain events in the Oil and Gas sector. We have crude, yet Dangote claims to import crude to run his refinery.
Dangote exports refined products yet, we import refined petroleum products. This defies logic.
“A nation that fails to harness and manage its energy resources efficiently is doomed to economic stagnation and systemic collapse. Nigeria’s energy sector remains a glaring example of mismanagement, corporate exploitation, and governmental negligence, leaving millions in darkness and stifling our industrial potential,” they stated.
The Congresses also criticised Nigeria’s continued celebration of generating just 5,528MW of electricity for over 200 million people, while South Africa, with a much smaller population, generates about 43,000MW. According to the Organised labour, the country’s energy poverty is a product of mismanagement, privatisation scams and policy failures.
“If the President is sinking N10 billion into solar in lamentation of the high cost of electricity in the Villa; the Deputy Governor of Lagos State wringing his hands on the millions of Naira he pays on electricity tariff monthly, while many agencies of government are crying out, are they thinking of how the worker or the average citizen is going through under such high tariff?” they queried.
With this year’s theme, “Reclaiming the Civic Space in the Midst of Economic Hardship,” the labour centres warned against the shrinking civic space in Nigeria.
They accused government actors of using brute force to silence protests, excluding workers from policymaking, and trampling on fundamental rights to speech and association and vowed to resist all attempts to silence them, stating, “We must remember that we represent those who serve in silence; those who cry in silence, those who cannot speak for themselves and those who daily silently grind in poverty. We are their voice. We have the opportunity to speak for them and we must. It is our duty to do so and we cannot afford to keep silent. Our voices are not the enemy, so we cannot afford to be afraid. The enemy of our nation is those who keep silent in the face of injustice; those who keep silent even as we are brutalised; those who keep silent even as we are paid starvation wages and those who will never speak up because of the hope of a promise.”
Additionally, labour issued a list of 20 demands to the federal and state governments, including salary adjustments in line with economic realities; extension of retirement age (65 years or 40 years of service) to all civil servants; restoration of gratuities and payment of all outstanding allowances as well as pensions and review and reversal of electricity sector privatisation
Also included in their demands are the reduction in telecommunications tariffs; halt to the indiscriminate registration of new unions and transparent governance and an end to repression.
They also requested strengthening the civic space, implementation of a national minimum pension, as well as economic justice, energy reform and protection of workers’ rights, among others.
The workers’ umbrella bodies further called for a reversal of the “unconstitutional” suspension of the Rivers State Government and greater accountability across all arms of government.