AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	59. Class in contemporary Africa
Paper ID	675
Author(s)	Obono, Daniele
Paper	View paper (PDF)
Abstract	This paper will deal with the relationship between the organised labour movement, especially the trade-union movement in Nigeria, and the wider popular masses, through the example of the campaigns against fuel price increase. The campaigns, spearheaded by the trade-unions and which are regularly happening about every year or so in the country since the middle of the 1990’s, and with more frequency since 1999, have always witnessed massive popular support. Key to the success of those events is the particular relationship that exists between the employed worker and the common people, mostly part of the informal sector, which constitutes the majority of the Nigerian population. The share of the informal economy in this country is one of the highest in Africa, and represented nearly 75% of non-oil GNP in 2003. This sector has undergone a real explosion in recent years, parallel to the development of the crisis and the implementation of structural adjustment policies which have led to massive lay-offs, notably in the public sector. Most of the dismissed workers, but also many salaried workers, have recourse to this economy of survival and “getting by”. Whether through overlapping between formal and informal activities, or membership of community groups (religious, ethnic, regional or village networks), employed workers thus have contacts of solidarity, exchange, mutual aid or dependence with most of the popular layers. Their collective mobilisation concerns and affects, in one way or another, the whole of the population, which in its majority shares similar difficulties and is then rather inclined to give them their support. All the more when it comes to the highly sensitive issue of price of petroleum products, which directly affects everybody’s daily life: higher fuel prices lead systematically to higher transport and production costs and then increases in the prices of basic products like services. So the mobilisation around that issue is a particularly interesting moment to look more closely to this specific class relationship. Our study will focus on the more recent campaigns, waged during 2004 and 2005. Who are the different groups composing that relation? How do they relate to each other? How is the alliance between them concretely forged and for how long? Those are some of the questions we would like to address.

Workers and popular masses in Nigeria