NURTW: The Politicization of a Trade Union
By Dada, Olumide Olumuyiwa, LLB, ACIPM, HRPL, LLM Candidate Let me be honest from the outset: I hold a strong personal bias against NURTW and its activities. But this piece is not about sentiment, it is about what the law actually says. That said, let's dig in. Osun State's recent move against the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) is only the latest chapter in a story Nigerians have watched repeat itself for two decades. A new government arrives, finds the NURTW leadership either uncooperative or politically inconvenient, and responds by banning the union's activities in the state. The union pushes back, the courts eventually weigh in, and the cycle continues under the next administration. This piece traces the legal foundation of the NURTW, the judicial pronouncements that have shaped state power over it, and the recurring pattern of governors including Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Lagos State governor attempting to proscribe its operations. Origins and Legal St...