By Victor Ahiuma-Younger
The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has accused employers and authorities establishments of weaponising court docket injunctions to suppress the constitutional rights of Nigerian employees and their unions.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, made the accusation in Abuja whereas delivering a goodwill message on the 2025 Public Lecture of the Nationwide Industrial Court docket of Nigeria, NICN, themed “Labour Justice and Labour Legislation Training.”
He expressed the NLC’s deep concern over what he described because the rising misuse of injunctions and ex parte orders by employers and governments to stifle reliable union actions and weaken the labour motion.
He stated: “A wholesome, harmonious, strong, and productive industrial relations area is the bedrock of nationwide growth. Central to sustaining this can be a truthful, neutral, and environment friendly adjudicatory course of.
“For this to be achieved, it’s crucial that key stakeholders inside this course of, notably the judiciary, possess a deep and nuanced understanding of the actors and their psychology within the industrial relations sphere: their aspirations, their methods, their reliable ways, and their peculiar challenges. This understanding is what permits the making of balanced and equitable choices that uphold justice.
“It’s subsequently our agency perception that the judicial course of, particularly underneath the sacred mandate of the Nationwide Industrial Court docket, should not be used to additional the emasculation of employees and their organisations. Quite the opposite, it have to be deployed as a protect to guard the weak and susceptible employee from the paws of unconscionable employers. That is the core of your Lordships’ sacred mandate.
“It’s within the mild of this that we should deal with a rising and deeply disturbing problem: the use, and sometimes misuse, of injunctions by employers and governments to stifle employees’ constitutional rights to affiliate, assemble, and maintain an opinion and the pliant disposition of a few of the judges. The haste with which these injunctions are sought and granted to cease employees from realising their reliable aims has grow to be a major obstacle to industrial concord.
“We’re compelled to ask: Why does it seem that it’s only the federal government and employers which are swiftly granted such injunctions by the NICN? This pattern requires pressing remediation if we’re to make any significant progress in the direction of true labour justice.
“Furtherance to this profound concern with a rising pattern that threatens harmonious industrial relations is the propensity for one-sided injunctions and ex parte orders from the NICN, virtually completely in favour of the federal government and employers. These orders, typically obtained in haste, are routinely used to truncate the reliable actions of employees and their unions. This judicial software, meant to protect the established order, has been weaponized to emasculate labour and tilt the steadiness of energy decisively and unjustly towards the workforce.
“Moreover, we observe a troubling one-sidedness within the judicial software of Part 40 of the 1999 Structure. Whereas the proper of people to belong to the political celebration and faith of their alternative is vigorously protected, the correlative proper to belong to the commerce union of 1’s alternative seems to be handled with much less judicial fervour.
“The NICN, because the specialised court docket vested with the jurisdiction over our labour legal guidelines, should take cognizance of this constitutional provision in its entirety and ship justice in a constant method, affirming that the liberty of affiliation is as basic within the office as it’s within the polling sales space or the place of worship.
“We name on the Nationwide Industrial Court docket to rise to its historic obligation because the guardian of our nation’s industrial relations sector. We urge the Court docket to not solely adjudicate disputes however to actively defend the fragile steadiness of energy essential for social dialogue to thrive.
“My Lords, the scales of justice have to be balanced, not tilted. When the protect of injunction turns into a sword towards the employee, the very cloth of Labour Justice is torn. We should ask: Justice for whom?
“It’s also vital that we draw the eye of the NICN to the necessity for attorneys throughout the employment relations area to be extra schooled on the tenets of business relations and basic labour administration. There’s a must fill the palpable information hole that exists throughout the authorized career, particularly in Labour Legislation. This could have essentially helped in delivering justice to labour since a deeply educated Bar would create a better understanding of the character of the contestations between the social companions.
“It’s also our agency perception that it isn’t solely the members of the Bar which have want of this steady schooling in Labour Legislation. Members of the Bench, with all due respect, equally want frequent coaching and retraining to be able to maintain them abreast with the fast-paced developments within the corpus of Labour Legislation, particularly with the arrival of AI and app-based applied sciences.
“Moreover, the NLC needs to passionately advocate for the NICN to lend its highly effective, revered voice to the decision for the Govt arm of presidency to, with out additional delay, transmit the Reviewed Labour Administration Legal guidelines to the Nationwide Meeting for passage into legislation. These reviewed legal guidelines are essential to aligning our office realities with worldwide greatest practices and the evolving wants of the Twenty first-century workforce. The continued delay is a disservice to the Labour adjudicatory course of and undermines our nation.
“We want to state, Your Lordships, that the legislation have to be a shelter for the susceptible, not a sanctuary for the highly effective. The NICN was established to be that shelter. It’s time to guarantee each employee, not simply each employer, feels its protecting cowl.
“We lengthen our honest gratitude to the NICN for organising this enlightening program. The Nigeria Labour Congress extends its hand of partnership and collaboration to the Court docket. Allow us to work collectively—employees, employers, and the judiciary—to co-create an industrial relations adjudication system that not solely units international requirements but additionally produces a good, equitable, and simply world of labor for the prosperity of our nation. When justice is assured for labour, the nation prospers!
“Allow us to transfer from being adversaries in a courtroom to architects in a workshop, constructing an industrial relations system the place justice isn’t a privilege for the highly effective, however a proper for the productive. Might God bless the works of our palms and should we eat the fruits of our labour!
“A folks united can by no means be defeated! Employees united can by no means be defeated!!”
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