NLC writes Akpabio, rejects new social security bill

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has condemned the proposed Nigeria Social Security Trust Fund (NSSTF) Bill, accusing the Senate of orchestrating an “attack on workers’ social security” and “betraying the collective trust” of millions of workers.

In a letter addressed to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, the NLC described the bill currently being pushed through the National Assembly, as “a brazen and unpatriotic act of class warfare.” The Congress warned that the legislation represents “a strategic manoeuvre by elements within the state apparatus to expropriate and plunder the collective wealth of the working class, accrued from our sweat and blood.”

NLC president, Comrade Joe Ajaero, said the bill is “not a reform; it is an enemy of social justice, a grave assault on the principles of tripartism, and a declaration of war against the Nigerian worker.” He argued that the proposed legislation is designed to strip workers of representation and hand over their contributions to political control.

“It is a profound irony,” Ajaero wrote, “that the Senate, which has ignored our persistent calls to rescue the tripartite-reviewed Labour Administration Laws from five years of executive captivity, now finds the time to orchestrate an attack on workers’ social security.” According to him, those laws, though imperfect would have strengthened Nigeria’s industrial relations system, but have been left abandoned “in favour of the NSSTF Bill, a regressive and anti-worker diversion.”

The NLC contends that the core danger of the bill lies in its attempt to dismantle the current tripartite governance structure of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) and the Employees’ Compensation Act (ECA). The existing structure allows for equal representation of government, employers and labour. According to the congress, this balance is the “only safeguard that prevents the state from treating the Fund as its political slush fund.”

But the proposed NSSTF Bill, Ajaero said, seeks to replace this “collective trusteeship with a government-heavy Governing Board, effectively handing over the keys to the workers’ treasury to political appointees.” He described the move as “a catastrophic and unacceptable dilution of workers’ voice,” adding that “by reducing the NLC’s representation and creating an artificial majority for the government bloc, the Bill seeks to silence the very people for whom the Fund exists.”

He accused the drafters of violating international labour standards, including ILO Convention 144 on Tripartite Consultation and the Philadelphia Declaration, which guarantees workers equal participation in decisions that affect them. The Bill, he said, is “a solution in search of a problem,” and its effect would be “the alienation of workers from their own security.”

Ajaero further warned that the Bill abolishes the Independent Investment Committee—an important safeguard for managing workers’ funds—thereby “paving the way for the mismanagement of workers’ contributions for politically expedient projects.” He faulted provisions that make the Managing Director answerable directly to the Minister instead of a balanced board, describing it as a direct invitation to political interference.

The NLC’s letter carries an unmistakable tone of confrontation. Ajaero warned that should the National Assembly proceed with what he called “this treacherous path of legalizing the seizure of workers’ funds,” the Congress would mobilise Nigerian workers and unions nationwide to forcefully resist. “We will issue a national directive to all workers and their unions to compel their employers to cease and desist from further deductions and remittances to the NSITF,” he wrote. “If the Fund is to be hijacked and converted into a tool for primitive accumulation by those who should protect it, then we will not stand by and watch our contributions be looted.”

Ajaero urged the Senate President to “stand this Bill down” to avoid being used “as a conveyor belt for the alienation and impoverishment of Nigerian workers.” He insisted that the NLC is prepared to ally with civil society groups and “mobilize its entire membership” to resist any attempt to “hijack our collective social security.”