Samuel Udo Bassey was a

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...

trade unionist A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...

, he was a member of the radical but now defunct Nigerian Trade Union Congress. Along with,

Michael Imoudu Michael Athokhamien Omnibus Imoudu was a Nigerian labour union leader. Early life and education Imoudu was born in 1902, in Afemai division of Edo State. His father was a soldier in the West African Frontier Force and had served in East Africa ...

Gogo Chu Nzeribe Gogo Chu Nzeribe was a Nigerian trade unionist and a leader of the nation's communist movement during the drive towards independence in the 1950s. He was the secretary general of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, which at the time was led by pre ...

and

Wahab Goodluck Wahab Omorilewa Goodluck (11 July 1923 – 10 September 1991) was the founding President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). During the Olusegun Obasanjo administration in the 1970s, he was barred from trade unionism along with Michael Imoudu, ...

, they constituted the activist wing of trade unionism in Nigeria during the Nigerian First Republic. He was a former secretary of Nigeria Produce Marketing Company and the Amalgamated Associated Company. In 1950s, as the secretary of the Municipal and Local Authority Workers Union (National Union of Local Government Employees), he was member of the central labor union body, the All-Nigeria Trade Union Federation headed by Imoudu. A split within the body led to the exit of some moderates, and Bassey subsequently became the secretary of the federation. In 1959, the radical wing merged with the National Council of Trade Unions in Nigeria to form the Nigerian Trade Union Congress, also headed by Imoudu, the congress was later affiliated with the

Pan Africanist Pan-Africanism is a worldwide movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all Indigenous and diaspora peoples of African ancestry. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the movement exte ...

All-African Trade Union Federation The All-African Trade Union Federation (AATUF) was a Pan-African trade union organisation, formed in November 1959 on the initiative of president Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana. The secretary of AATUF was Amadou N'diaye. The assistant secretary general ...

, formed by

Kwame Nkrumah Kwame Nkrumah (born 21 September 190927 April 1972) was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957. An in ...

. A split within the radical led to the emergence of Goodluck as NTUC president and Bassey as the general secretary. The new group formed an alliance with

Tunji Otegbeye Jeremiah Olatunji Otegbeye (14 July 1925 – 9 October 2009) was a Nigerian politician, trade unionist and medical doctor.EgbaYewa Descendants Association Washington DC U.S.A. ''

to form the Socialist Workers and Farmers Party in 1963. The new party was socialist oriented and did not trust the First Republic political parties to protect the interest of the working class. He believed in the inevitability of strikes, saying that employers are too greedy to channel some of their profits to workers’ welfare while government was no less myopic. On February 19, 1971, he was detained by the regime of Yakubu Gowon for 15 months. In 1974, Bassey and a few labour leaders, who were attending the burial of a colleague decided to move towards a united front, they signed resolution to fight on a common front and established a working committee that will convene a conference of all labour unions. This resolution also known as the Apena Declaration of Trade Union Unity laid the foundation for the present

Nigeria Labour Congress The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) is an umbrella organization for trade unions in Nigeria. History The Nigerian Labour Congress was founded in December 1978, as a merger of four different organisations: the Nigeria Trade Union Congress (NTUC), ...

.,Elufiede, B. O. (2010). Labor unions and politics: The experience of Nigerian working class. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris. P. 118

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bassey, Samuel Nigerian trade unionists Nigerian Marxists