Abstract
This chapter focuses on British official and unofficial attempts to shape the development of labor organizations in colonial Nigeria. It emphasized colonial state’s attempts to deprive leftists within the Nigerian labor movement any opportunity to foment antigovernment propaganda or action. The development of “sound industrial relations” was important to successful antileftist measures in all ramifications.1 The chapter presents a historical narrative of the collaboration between the colonial state, officials of the British Trades Union Congress, the Nigerian private sector, pro-British Nigerian nationalists and labor leaders, and the United States of America at the onset of the Cold War in 1945. It argues that the success of various measures taken in the labor sector was not insulated from the general anti-leftist policies implemented between 1945 and 1960.2
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Notes
Contrary to E. O. Egboh, “Trade Union Education in Nigeria, 1940–1964,” African Studies Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (April, 1971): 83–93, British attempts to build “sound industrial relations” in Nigeria was not just about educating the Nigerian workers and their leaders.
A scholar has addressed issues as it relates to the nationalist movement in another study. My emphasis here is the labor sector in view of the shortcomings in previous studies. See Hakeem I. Tijani, Britain, Leftist Nationalists and the Transfer of Power in Nigeria, 1945–1965 (London/New York: Routledge, 2005; Reprinted 2007). Studies about development of labor and trade organizations in Nigeria have been the focus of academic and nonacademic since the mid-1960s. Some of the studies are written by those who participated in the actual development of “sound” labor union organization during the period. Scholarly works by Ananaba, Darah, Otobo, Tokunboh, and Yesufu fall within this category. One can refer to them as the nationalist school of thought based on their narratives and analyses. Other category includes former colonial officers, and American and European scholars. These include Brown, Orr, Cohen, and Cooper. See
T. M. Yesufu, An Introduction to Industrial Relations in Nigeria (London, 1962);
C. A. Orr. Yesufu, An Introduction to Industrial Relations in Nigeria (London, 1962);
C. A. Orr, “Trade Unionism in Colonial Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1966): 65–81;
W. Ananaba, The Trade Union Movement in Nigeria (London, 1970);
R. Cohen, Labour and Politics in Nigeria, 1945–1971 (London, 1982);
R. Cohen, “Michael Imoudu and the Nigerian Labour Movement,” Race and Class, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1987): 345–362;
M. Tokunboh, Trade Unions in Nigeria (Lagos, 1985);
D. Otobo, Foreign Interests and Nigerian Trade Unions (Lagos, 1987);
D. Otobo, State and Industrial Relations in Nigeria (Lagos, 1988);
G. G. Darah, “Imoudu and the Labour Movement,” Journal of African Marxists, number 9, (July, 1986): 87–97;
F. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labour Question in French and British Africa (London, 1996);
B. Freund, “Labor and Labor History in Africa: A Review of the Literature,” African Studies Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (June, 1984): 1–58;
C. Brown, “Dialectics of Colonial Labour Control,” Journal of Asian and African Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1–2 (1988): 32–59;
C. Brown, “We Were All Slaves” : African Miners, Culture, and Resistance at the Enugu Government Colliery (Social History of Africa Series) Portsmouth: Heinemann, Oxford: James Currey, and Cape Town: 2003. Because of its close relationship with nationalist movement during the period, specificity in labor study remained ambiguous and difficult.
M. Tokunboh, Labour Movements in Nigeria: Past and Present (Ibadan, 1985), 25–26.
See Hakeem I. Tijani, “Britain and the Foundation of Anti-Communist Policies in Nigeria, 1945–1960,” African and Asian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2009): 47–67.
See A. Carew, “Charles Millard, A Canadian in the International Labour Movement: A Case Study of the ICFTU 1955–1961,” Labour/Le travail, Vol. 37 (Spring, 1996): 121–148.
D. Goldsworthy (ed.) British Documents on the End of Empire: The Conservative Government and the End of Empire—Part III (HMSO: London, 1994), 374.
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© 2012 Hakeem Ibikunle Tijani
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Tijani, H.I. (2012). The Colonial State and Organized Labor. In: Union Education in Nigeria. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003591_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003591_4
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