...and seek legal redress
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has deployed a digital mobile application to enable workers nationwide to report workplace abuses and secure legal redress.
The new initiative was done in partnership with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and the International Trade Union Confederation to establish the app aimed at identifying, documenting, and reporting trade union rights violations across Nigerian workplaces.
The move was driven by Nigeria’s inclusion among the ten worst countries globally for workers’ rights in the 2025 ITUC Global Rights Index.
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Opening the two-day capacity-building workshop in Abuja, Kabiru Ado Sani Minjibir, deputy president of the NLC and president of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, representing Joe Ajaero, NLC president, he emphasized that organized labor must move beyond passively enduring workplace abuses to systematically documenting them through standardized digital tools.
He stated that protecting fundamental rights, including fair pay, safe working environments, anti-discrimination protections, and collective bargaining privileges requires a fundamental transformation of labor’s advocacy tools.
“We must evolve new strategies, sharpen our tools of analysis, and strengthen our weapons of struggle. This is why this workshop is critical. It is designed to bridge the gaps in our capacity; to teach us how to systematically document violations using standardized tools,” he said. “We must teach others how to recognise, document and report rights abuses in our workplaces.”
He expressed alarm over ongoing arbitrary detentions of labor leaders, violent suppressions of peaceful protests, and state interference in trade union operations.
He added that the NLC has escalated these grievances to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, focusing specifically on non-compliance with ILO Conventions 87 and 98 concerning freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, while urging union delegates to leverage gathered data to engage the judiciary, lawmakers, civil society, and the press.
Government inspection and tripartite monitoring
Addressing the gathering on behalf of the regulatory authority, Emmanuel Igbinosun, director of Standards at the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, affirmed that governmental oversight alone is insufficient to police every workplace across the country, requiring direct intelligence from workers and union stewards. He noted that functional tripartism depends on continuous information sharing between labor organizations and state inspectors.
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“In tripartism, we cannot do without one another. We need each other to make tripartism work,” he stated. “I can rely on your presence in that organisation to inform me of what is going on there, so I can take action.”
He explained that educating union delegates to recognize and record statutory infringements complements government inspections, enhancing the ministry’s enforcement capabilities against non-compliant employers.
International labour standards and enforcement gaps
Examining global standards compliance, Inviolata Chinyangarara, senior specialist for Workers’ Activities at the ILO Country Office in Abuja, observed that formal ratification of international labor conventions yields no real benefit unless those provisions are integrated into domestic legal structures and daily working conditions. She stressed that labor unions must function as active watchdogs to expose hidden workplace abuses.
She stated that the ultimate metric of any international labor standard lies in tangible improvements to workers’ wages, occupational safety, and overall working conditions. She urged workshop participants to serve as ambassadors by transmitting international labor standards training back to grassroots union branches across their respective economic sectors.
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Global solidarity and structural abuse mechanisms
Highlighting international development support, Lennart Oestergaard, resident representative for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Nigeria, confirmed that FES is co-funding the technical tools necessary to translate rights observations into actionable legal cases.
He observed that Nigeria’s low ranking on the ITUC Global Rights Index underscores the necessity for technical reporting infrastructure.
He detailed recurring structural challenges in the local market, including the arrest of union leaders, worker victimization for union membership, disruption of strikes, prolonged judicial delays, and real-wage erosion caused by persistent inflation.
He added that workplace violations represent a global challenge rather than an isolated Nigerian issue, emphasizing that international partnerships aim to foster worker solidarity and deploy practical, long-term mechanisms to address rights abuses wherever they occur.
Ngozi Ekugo is a Senior Correspondent at BusinessDay. She holds a Masters in management from the University of Lagos, an undergraduate from University of Lagos, and is in an alumni of Queen's College. Shes currently an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM). She has a brief experience at Goldman sachs, London in its Human Capital Management division. She is interested in human capital development and is leveraging her varied experience across sectors to report labour and global mobility trends for stakeholders to make informed decisions.
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