The government’s brutal response to the endhunger protests has made Nigeria a laughing stock in the world. The Tinubu regime must release Abayomi and all detained #EndBadGovernance protesters, reverse all its pro IMF policies and end hunger/bad governance in Nigeria. No government, colonial or post colonial, military or post military, can kill or jail the spirit of resistance of the Nigerian people
By Izielen Agbon
Seven years ago, Drew Povey, a British national, set up a non profit bookshop to sell pro labour books to Nigerian workers at low prices. The bookshop also provided photocopying services to retired workers. The NLC offered him a rent free room on the second floor of the labour house. Povey named the bookshop Iva Valley Books to honour the fighting spirit of Nigerian Miners killed in the Enugu Iva valley coal mines in 1949. Adeyemi Abayomi Abiodun worked at the bookshop.
What exactly happened at the Iva Valley mines in 1949 that warranted the naming of a bookshop in memory of the event. We will revisit this incident given that the Nigerian ruling class has forbidden the teaching of Nigerian history in our secondary schools. In 1948, the Ministry of Labour had decided the Colliery Workers’ Union would be the sole union representing 920 hewers and 2,470 other underground coal miners. The Iva Valley Mines management refused to recongnize the union. Therefore, the Colonial government established the Whitley Council in February 1949 to resolve issue. The Whitley Council consisted of the Colliery management, Union leaders, the Personnel manager and the labour officer. Before the third meeting of the council, the hewers embarked on a ‘go slow’ strike. The hewers put forward their demands by initiating a ‘go slow’ strike.
The hewers’ demands were:1. Hewers should be paid 4s. per day rather than 3s. per day. 2. Seniority pay for all underground workers other than hewers who already had this privilage.3. Underground allowance paid to all Nigerian miners should be increased from 4d. to 12d. per day since European miners were paid 2s. per day. 4. Transport allowance should be paid to all Nigerian miners. 5. Tubmen and hewers should be upgraded.6. All victimization of union activists should stop and paragraph 36 of the labour code should be implemented. 7. All past wage claims, already agreed to by management, should be paid immediately.8. A 44 hours week should be established and used as the basis of computing overtime instead of the present system of using 45 hours.The colliery management agreed to stop all victimization.
However, it failed to reach an agreement with the hewers’ representatives on all other demands. The hewers were dissatisfied and initiated a series of demonstrations. On October 25, 1949, 100 hewers demonstrated outside the offices of the Colliery manager and the Chief Accountant. The next day another 100 hewers demonstrated outside the office of the Personnel manager. Then, they stormed the office of the Assistant Personnel manager. On November 1, 1949, a meeting was held between the union leaders, the colliery management and the hewers’ executive. The hewers’ executive demanded the immediate payment of all seniority pay arrears from 1946 and 1947. The colliery management rejected this demand. A trade dispute was declared and the colonial State intervened by establishing an Enugu Colliery Board.
The Enugu Colliery Board was made up of State officials and members of the rising Nigerian petite bourgeoisie. The Board held its first meeting on November 7, 1949. That night, the hewers initiated a ‘go slow’ strike and demanded the immediate payment of all senoirity pay arrears, the upgrading of hewers and the provision of housing and travelling allowances. Management reacted by dismissing 50 hewers and serving 250 other hewers with dismissal warnings. 50 hewers were dissmised daily between the 9th and 13th of November. The miners responded with a ‘sit down’ strike.
On November 11th, the hewers’ wives started demonstrating in front of the offices of the colliery management. The women demanded that their husbands be paid all arrears. On November 15th, the hewer’s wives demonstrated at the offices of the colliery management. Later, they marched to the Colliery manager’s home and carried out minor damages before the police could disperse them. The women broke the windows of the Secretariat Buildings as the police began using tear gas. The next day, the women went to the Obwetti mines, where the ‘sit down’ strike was in progress and attacked officials of the colliery management. The colonial State reacted by evacuating all Senior Service British staff members and their families from Enugu.
The women’s initiative and power shattered the divisions between the point of production and the point of reproduction as well as those between them, as unwaged workers, and their striking husbands, as waged workers. From the colonial State’s point of view, the women’s initiative circulated the struggle beyond the terrain controlled by the colonial State, as the employer. Since the struggle was now at the level of the social factory, the colonial State, as the State, took control of the overall efforts to manage the conflict.On the night of November 17, the Chief Commissioner called a meeting at the Government Lodge.
The meeting decided that two basic approachs should be used to terminate the hewers’ ‘sit down’ strike. First, attempts would be made to find suitable mediators that could convince the hewers to terminate their strike. Secondly, 900 police reinforcement from other parts of the Eastern provinces would be brought to Enugu. This decision was taken after those at the meeting concluded that the hewers’ strike was really political agitation. The Chief Commissioner claimed that there were political agitators, waiting in the background and ready to take advantage of the hewers’ struggle for their own subversive purposes.The Assistant Commissioner of Police reported that 30 cases of explosives had been appropriated from the Colliery magazine by members of the Zikist movement. Eleven cases were yet to be recovered. Based on this information, the meeting participants decided to remove all explosive materials from the distribution stores at the Obwetti and Iva Valley mines on the next day. Mr. F. S. Phillip (Senior Superintendent of Police) was to go to Obwetti mine with 25 armed policemen. Mr. E. J. R. Ormiston (Senior Assistant Superintendent of Police) and Mr. O. P. S. Jones (Assistant Superintendent of Police) were to proceed to Iva Valley Store No.l with 50 armed policemen. Mr. H. J. W. Watkins (Assistant Superintendent of Police) and Mr. R. A. Brown (Assistant Superintendent of Police) were to proceed to Iva Valley Stores No.2 and No.3 with 50 armed policemen.
The explosives evacuation operations went as planned, although Mr. Brown accompanied Mr. Phillip to Obwetti mine contrary to orders. All the three explosives evacuation operations were initiated simultaneously. The operations at Obwetti mine and Iva Valley No.2 and No.3 were successully carried out. At Iva Valley Store No.l, the operation was handled with excessive force and much bloodshed. Mr. Ormiston and Mr. Jones had arrived at the store with the 50 armed policemen at 11.00 am. There were a few miners standing around and talking. The Colliery management officials asked these miners to load the police vehicles with the explosive materials. The miners refused. The officials stopped all evacuation activities and telephoned the Colliery manager for a railway engine and a railway wagon.
Meanwhile, the two officers and 50 armed policemen stood around the Iva Valley Store No.l. Soon, more miners gathered and by 1.00 pm when the railway engine and wagon arrived, there were 1,500 miners present. The miners began chanting and singing when they found out that the Colliery management planned to initiate a lockout after the explosive materials have been removed. Mr. Ormiston then informed the Assistant Police Commissioner that the operations could not be carried out. The Assistant Police Commissioner contacted the Chief Commissioner, who ordered Messrs. Phillips, Brown and Watkins to join Mr. Ormiston at Iva Valley Store No.l with a reinforcement of 75 armed policemen. The reinforcement arrived at Iva Valley Store No.l at 1.30 pm and Mr. Phillips took command of the combined force. He ordered his men to take up positions on the hillside and open fire on the unarmed miners. All the 125 policemen fired their weapons numerous times.
When the smoke cleared, 21 miners were dead and 55 wounded. No policeman was hurt. Riots broke out in all the major towns in the Eastern provinces of Nigeria. According to Nduka Eze, the Zikist trade union leader, “The radicals and the moderates, the revolutionaries and the stooges, the bourgeoisie and the workers sank their differences, remembered the word “Nigeria” and rose in revolt against evil and inhumanity. ” On November 20, 1949, the colonial State appointed the Fitzgerald Commission to look into the shooting incident. On December 12th, the Fitzgerald Commission commenced sitting at Enugu and then adjourned to resume sitting, in camera, at Westminster in London on January 5, 1950. The commission published its report in June of 1950.
This is the story of the Iva Valley coal miners in whose honour the Iva Valley books in the NLC labour house was named. Seventy four years later, armed policemen shot unarmed civilians in the #EndBadGovernance/End Hunger protests. Some were reportedly killed. More than 2000 were arrested. Days after the protests, armed policemen stormed Iva Valley Books in the dark of night. They broke down the door and took all the pro labour books and photocopier. Then, they accused Povey and his employee, Adeyemi Abayomi Abiodun, of criminal conspiracy, subversion, treasonable felony, terrorism financing, cyber crime and trying to overthrow the Tinubu regime.
Abayomi was later abducted from his home by armed IRT policemen. His bank account was frozen. He was beaten, tortured, chained, forced to sign confessional statements and detained in Kuje prison. One of the evidence against him was displayed by the Government Prosecutor to the Nigerian Press on Monday, August 30. It was a book titled “REVOLUTION IS THE CHOICE OF THE PEOPLE” by Anne Alexander. Anyone can buy a copy of the book from Amazon. The whole charade was a shame. The government’s brutal response to the endhunger protests has made Nigeria a laughing stock in the world. The Tinubu regime must release Abayomi and all detained #EndBadGovernance protesters, reverse all its pro IMF policies and end hunger/bad governance in Nigeria. No government, colonial or post colonial, military or post military, can kill or jail the spirit of resistance of the Nigerian people.
•Agbonizielenagbon@yahoo.comTwitter:@izielenagbon
•Opinions, positions or thoughts expressed here are personal and strictly of the writers/authors and not The Daily Crucible.
