As Nigerian workers join the global commemoration of Workers’ Day, the mood is far from celebratory. Instead, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has painted a grim picture of widespread suffering, blaming President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies for exacerbating the cost-of-living crisis and pushing millions deeper into poverty.

Since Tinubu took office in May 2023, his administration’s economic policies—including the abrupt removal of fuel subsidies and the floating of the naira—have triggered skyrocketing inflation, a collapsing currency, and unprecedented economic hardship. Official data underscores the severity of the crisis:

- Inflation has surged to 33.2% (March 2024), the highest in nearly three decades, with food inflation at a staggering 40%.

- The naira has lost over 70% of its value against the dollar since the forex liberalization policy, driving up import costs and crippling businesses.

- Fuel prices have jumped by over 400% since subsidy removal, pushing transport and food costs to unbearable levels.

- Despite a nominal N70,000 minimum wage, real wages have plummeted, with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reporting that 63% of Nigerians (133 million people) are multidimensionally poor.

NLC: "Workers Impoverished, Dehumanized"

NLC President Joe Ajaero delivered a scathing assessment, declaring that workers have faced "one anti-worker policy after another" under the current government.

"The ruling elite have ganged up against workers and the masses," Ajaero said. "They promote impoverishment, exploitation, and slavish wages while enforcing oppressive policies dictated by global financial institutions."

He highlighted the struggle to implement the N70,000 minimum wage, with many state and federal agencies defaulting, leaving workers struggling to survive.

A System in Crisis

Ajaero accused the Tinubu administration of deepening Nigeria’s "two-class society"—where the rich grow wealthier while workers and the poor bear the brunt of austerity measures.

"Capitalism devours jobs, strips dignity, and widens inequality," he said. "The state, instead of protecting workers, has become an enforcer of exploitation."

Despite the challenges, the NLC vowed to intensify its fight for living wages, full implementation of labour laws, and resistance against neoliberal policies.

"Our liberation will not be gifted—it must be won," Ajaero declared. "We must demand not just crumbs, but our fair share of the bread we bake."

What’s Next?

Analysts warn that without urgent intervention, Nigeria’s cost-of-living crisis could spiral further, fueling social unrest.

As the world marks Workers’ Day, Nigeria’s labor movement stands at a crossroads—fighting not just for better wages, but for survival in an economy that has left millions behind.

The Court of Appeal in Calabar has upheld the conviction and three-year prison sentence of Peter Ogban, a professor of soil science at the University of Calabar, for manipulating the outcome of the 2019 senatorial election in Akwa Ibom North-West District in favour of Godswill Akpabio, now President of the Nigerian Senate.

Ogban, who served as the returning officer in the contentious election, was first convicted in March 2021 by the Akwa Ibom State High Court in Uyo. The court found him guilty of falsifying election results in Oruk Anam and Etim Ekpo local government areas, unlawfully inflating the vote tally of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the expense of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was sentenced to three years imprisonment and fined N100,000.

The appellate court reaffirmed the verdict, condemning Ogban’s actions as a gross abuse of academic and professional trust and a betrayal of public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral process. During his trial, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) prosecuted Ogban, who admitted under oath to altering results, including adding 5,000 fictitious votes to the APC’s total in one local government area. He pleaded for leniency, but trial judge Justice Augustine Odokwo insisted the law must take its course, calling the case “novel” and precedent-setting.

Ogban had argued in court that he merely collated figures submitted by local government polling officers and did not personally manipulate the results. However, the court found this defense unconvincing given the deliberate inflation of votes in specific areas.

The judgment has sparked widespread reactions across social media, with many Nigerians questioning why Akpabio, the main beneficiary of the manipulated results, continues to serve in high public office.

One user, Lawal Ahmed, wrote, “Then what’s Akpabio still doing in the upper chamber?” Another, Peter Johnson, lamented, “What pains me most is how professors who spent years researching and teaching would rig elections for politicians who don’t even have complete WAEC results.”

Others, like Dave Adode, expressed outrage: “Akpabio should also face the penalty. The Professor has dragged his name in the mud; his family will suffer shame, and he cannot enjoy the money. Money don go; prison don come, Akpabio dey free.”

Critics argue that while Ogban is facing justice, Akpabio not only walked free but contested again in 2023, won, and is now Senate President. Some called for his resignation or fresh legal scrutiny into his electoral victories.

Ogban’s case is not isolated. In February 2025, another academic, Ignatius Uduk of the University of Uyo, was also sentenced to three years in prison for publishing false results during the 2019 state house of assembly elections in the same Akwa Ibom North-West zone.

As these convictions continue to stir national debate, many Nigerians are calling for broader accountability in the electoral system, especially among those who benefit from manipulated results.

Oil prices settled down on Wednesday and recorded the largest monthly drop in almost 3-1/2 years after Saudi Arabia signaled a move toward producing more and expanding its market share, while the global trade war eroded the outlook for fuel demand.

Brent crude futures settled $1.13, or 1.76%, lower at $63.12 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures dropped $2.21, or 3.66%, to close at $58.21, the lowest settlement since March 2021.

For the month, Brent settled down 15% and WTI was down 18%, the biggest monthly percentage declines since November 2021.

Both benchmarks slumped after Saudi Arabia, one of the world's biggest oil producers, signaled it was unwilling to prop up the oil market with further supply cuts and could handle a prolonged period of low prices.

"It raises concern that we could be headed towards another production war," said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with Price Futures Group. "Are the Saudis trying to send a message that they are going to get back their market share? We'll have to wait and see."

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia pushed for a larger-than-planned OPEC+ output hike in May.

Several OPEC+ members will suggest a ramp-up of output increases for a second straight month in June, sources told Reuters last week. The group will meet on May 5 to discuss output plans.

"The trade war directly reduces oil demand and hinders travel by consumers. Combined with OPEC’s unwinding of output cuts, the risk of oversupply is escalating," said Raymond James investment strategy analyst Pavel Molchanov.

U.S. President Donald Trump's announced tariffs on all U.S. imports on April 2 and China responded with its own levies, stoking a trade war between the world's top two oil-consuming nations.

Concerns over the global economy weakening continued to pressure oil prices.

Data on Wednesday showed the U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter, weighed down by a deluge of goods imported by businesses eager to avoid higher costs.

Trump's tariffs have made it probable the global economy will slip into recession this year, a Reuters poll suggested.

U.S. consumer confidence, meanwhile, slumped to its lowest in nearly five years in April on growing concerns over tariffs, data showed on Tuesday.

U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell unexpectedly last week on higher export and refinery demand, limiting some price losses.

Crude inventories fell by 2.7 million barrels to 440.4 million barrels in the week ended April 25, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 429,000-barrel rise.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russians fighting more intensely despite ceasefire talk, Ukrainian commander says

Russian forces have significantly increased the intensity of their combat activity in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared a three-day ceasefire from May 8-10 to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War Two. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants an immediate ceasefire lasting at least 30 days.

"Despite loud statements about readiness to cease fire for the May holidays, the occupiers (Russian forces) have significantly increased the intensity of combat actions, focusing their main efforts on the Pokrovsk direction," Syrskyi said on Telegram.

Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield situation, including the intensity of Russian combat actions.

Russian forces, which began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have for months been trying to encircle the eastern town of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub, but Ukrainian resistance has slowed their advances in the area.

Moscow sees taking control of Pokrovsk as an important stepping stone to incorporating the whole of Ukraine's Donetsk region into Russia. Moscow de facto controls most of the region.

Kyiv and its allies reject Russia's territorial claims as illegal and accuse Moscow of prosecuting a war of colonial conquest.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine ready for territorial concessions, US presidential envoy says

The Kiev regime is ready for territorial concessions in order to settle the Ukraine conflict but does not want to recognize it de jure, US presidential special envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg told Fox News.

"Not de jure forever, but de facto, because the Russians actually occupy that and they've agreed to that. They know that if they have a ceasefire in place, which means you sit on the ground that you currently hold, that's what they're willing to go to," the envoy said. "You have your line set, and they're willing to go there," Kellogg stressed.

Reuters/Tass

Against the background of ongoing defections to the All Progressives Congress by politicians from the so-called opposition parties, we still harbour the fear of a one-party state as an imminent reality. The truth is, what we run is already tantamount to a one-party system, a short historical distance away from the military era, where the head of state, who creates political parties, also hands political parties their respective defining ideologies. The multi-party democratic system, planked as it is on the distinctiveness of ideas and ideologies between parties, and requires the independence of political agents. Contenders must have equal chances to sell their moral vision to the people, contest for power, and maintain their stance even when they have not been voted to power. Also, the institutions must be autonomous enough to regulate the activities of political actors across the board. These are all features that have been seriously lacking in Nigerian politics.

Properly speaking, Nigeria does not even have political parties. What we have are platforms on which any candidate who can commandeer money and influence runs an election. The closest to an ideology that anyone will find in Nigeria’s present political arrangement is the desperation to seize power and, if that fails, to get as close to it as possible. Once upon a time, the PDP called itself the most formidable political party and boasted it would sustain power for the next 60 or even 100 years. They hardly survived one election cycle out of presidential power. Their party members virtually emptied themselves into the winning party even before the 2015 electoral losers had fully understood what had befallen them.

In any case, it does not quite matter which side wins an election because we will ultimately be governed by the same cross-carpeting agents. Our politics mostly lacks a distinguishing philosophy. Take, for instance, the APC. Does anyone have any examples of the progressive causes they have pursued since their founding? I even doubt anyone in the APC ever wonders if they are staying true to their “progressive” appellation. One can say the same for the PDP, whether as the “Peoples Democratic Party” or as “Power to the People.” One of the most laughable comments I read about the Labour Party during the 2023 elections was that it platformed a candidate whose antecedents did not match the “labour” ideology. There was an implicit assumption that the Nigerian “Labour Party” had an ideological affinity with the “Labour Party” of, say, the UK and Australia (which are typically peopled by social democrats) and should therefore act according to character. But there is nothing like that in Nigeria. Whatever name a political party calls itself is, at best, aspirational. It has little to do with what they can be trusted to always stand for. What matters is the control of federal power and mobilising resources for electoral victory.

 Our politics has always been more of an aggregation of personalities managing their self-interests rather than an espousal of a governing vision. If you ever watch parliamentary debates in Nigeria, you would have noted that it never happens that lawmakers disagree with their peers based on any philosophy of how government should be structured. They all agree and disagree on the same thing; they collectively sign off the padded national budgets, and like serfs, they jump to their feet to chorus “on your mandate, we shall stand” when Bola Tinubu appears in their hollowed chamber. Without any internal differences, does it truly matter whether we have one party or a dozen?

Besides, the nature of our politics makes no room for abstract ideas. Elections are won or lost based on what they call “structure”, a euphemism for clout cultivated at grassroots levels and which will be sold to the highest bidder during elections. Politics is a pyramid scheme where those who hold sway at different levels exchange the votes of the people over whom they maintain some influence, and their calculations are always based on immediate material gains. The average Nigerian, too, hardly subscribes to a politics of ideas; people vote for personalities representing their identity groups and who they believe will hold power in trust for them. The platform on which such candidates compete hardly matters to our people, and it would seem superfluous for any party to maintain a distinctive ideology.

Perhaps, the biggest reason we never seem to evolve beyond a singularising political order is the nature of our economic system itself. We are largely an extractive economy, a system where the primary function of leadership is to manage and allocate raw resources. It is a political arrangement that makes the president disproportionately powerful since the opportunities for everyone’s social mobility are concentrated in his hands. He distributes to them based on the perceived degree of their fidelity to him. It is not in his personal interest to institutionalise the social instruments of democracy, and he will do everything to ensure opposition parties do not flourish.

If the “opposition” does not allow themselves to be amicably enticed with money and other offers, they will find themselves forcefully crippled. It is not strange that Ifeanyi Okowa, the man who could have become the vice president in 2023, is now crawling on his face to join the APC. He could simply have joined the APC without a fuss, like his peers had done, but he had to add a cringeworthy explanation. For a man who has a N1tn case with the EFCC, who can blame him for being practical? He is not the first person to join the APC to have his sins forgiven, as Adams Oshiomole once enjoined. Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President, too, was once in Okowa’s shoes. He joined the APC, and his case with the EFCC has been put in permanent abeyance. In a country where their president can suspend a governor, how many people will not bow and worship if their survival depends on it?

About the only time since 1999 “opposition” politics thrived in Nigeria was when the regional ACN contended with the national PDP. Now that power has changed hands, we know that the APC was hardly driven by ideological commitment during those years. Their “opposition” politics was funded by ambitious Tinubu with Lagos’ money. Once he got into power, he muted their bought voices. The only state in Nigeria where the “Lagos model” of sponsoring political opposition can replicate itself is Rivers State, and Tinubu has already anticipated that possibility. Not only did he undercut the strength of the PDP in that state by taking over one of their chieftains, Nyesom Wike, but he also showed his hand of power by suspending the substantive governor for six months. The Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, who—just months ago—stood defiantly on his two feet, now grovels before the almighty federal power. The reality of being out of power must have hit him.

Such is the disempowering nature of our democracy. It constricts our choices to either being rewarded for compliance or punished with marginality. The average career politician chooses the former for obvious reasons, but also because they are amoral like that. Let me be clear that the fear of a one-party state is a well-founded one. To the best of our ability, we must resist it from becoming fully official because it will further degrade our politics. Yet, we cannot just mourn a politics that we wished we had—rather than the one that is already operative.

Punch