How Michael Imoudu ignited the 1945 general strike, By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf

By personal example – including dressing like “a juju priest and brandishing his horse tail fan, which his followers and admirers believed to be the secret of his power and iron will” – Imoudu electrified workers by drawing bystanders into the strike, helping the weak to overcome fear, strengthening the activism of the activists, and intimidating British and African opponents of the strike.

Nigeria’s first General Strike began exactly on 22 June, 1945. It lasted for 45 days in the Lagos area, at least 53 days in the Northern and Southern provinces, and 74 days in the “British” Cameroons.

This epoch-making strike was ignited by Michael Imoudu – a labour leader who did not in anyway partake in initiating or planning the strike.

The strike was enabled by the government’s “war-time” policy and racism. For instance, the policy compelled railway workers to work for at least seventy-seven hours weekly. This led to exhaustion, tension, irritability, agitation.

It also created food shortages, scarcity of imported consumer goods, inflation, and devaluation of income. Between July 1942 and April 1943, the index in the cost of living rose from 179 to 200 by May 1945.

It similarly led to demands for increases in wages and the cost of living allowance (COLA). But the government, while repeatedly refusing to accede to workers’ demands, increased the salaries and allowances of European staff, and Africans holding ‘European’ positions.

This led to the rumour that the Colonial Office in London had, in fact, directed the government to grant concessions to workers, but the government was unwilling to comply, because it wanted to see what workers could do before implementing London’s directives.

It was also rumoured that the government had vowed to massively dismiss workers, should they insist on wage and COLA increases, and replace them with demobilised ex-service men.

These factors compelled the apex union, the African Civil Service Technical Workers’ Union (ACSTWU), led by TA Bankole, to call a general rally of workers to deliberate on their problems and the way forward.

The rally resolved to issue a threatening ultimatum for a general strike, which would take place, “with due regard to law and order on the one hand and starvation on the other”, and, “not later than Thursday, June 21, 1945.”

Imoudu was not part of those that conceived, initiated and signed the ultimatum for the strike. He was not even in Lagos when the strike was initiated. He was in Auchi, where the government had banished him, following his dismissal, arrest, and detention in Lagos, and subsequent exile and imprisonment in Benin City in January 1943.

In the Benin City prison, he organised a protest of prisoners over poor feeding, which led to his banishment to Auchi. He was released from exile on 20 May, 1945 and returned to Lagos on 2 June, 1945.

Back in Lagos, Imoudu enquired about the problems, challenges and prospects of the proposed strike from labour leaders, especially those of ACSTWU. He also interacted with the rank-and-file workers to gauge their willingness and readiness to embark on the strike

From ACSTWU’s leaders, Imoudu learnt that while they were determined to call the strike, they also wanted to meet all pre-strike legal requirements.

Amongst the rank-and-file workers, Imoudu discovered the workers’ readiness to embark on the general strike. He confirmed the widespread rumours that ACSTWU’s leadership were vacillating, and almost capitulating to government pressures to call off the strike.

To Imoudu, these pointed to government’s unwillingness to grant any concession to workers. This led him to conclude that only concerted actions by workers would compel government to grant concessions.

Imoudu, therefore, began mobilisation for the strike. He led radical unionists from workplace to workplace, mobilising workers for the strike, irrespective of the position of the ACSTWU leadership.

He told workers: “The European workers have paid leave; we African workers demand leave with pay. The European receives pension on retirement; we Africans demand this pension. The European worker is given preferential treatment, we Africans demand better conditions of service.”

Imoudu enlightened workers that the legal technicalities raised by the government were non-issues. That government was determined not to grant any concession contrary to the directives of the Colonial Office. He underscored that: “negotiation would serve no useful purpose since all indications pointed to the obvious unwillingness of the government to yield ground.” Therefore: “Negotiation has failed. We are going on Strike on 22nd [June 1945].”

Imoudu similarly told workers that history has shown that the oppressors have never given concessions to the workers until and unless they were compelled to do so through the organised, unified, concerted and persistent actions of the oppressed.

He equally propagated that trade union militancy was a manifestation of: “the ripeness of Nigeria for self-government”. That organising strikes and other forms of political struggles were solid indications of a colonised people to govern themselves. He said that without such struggles, colonial powers would never grant colonised people any concession.

Therefore, workers must speak to the government in “the language they would understand better” – strike.

Imoudu did not ignite the 1945 General Strike at the level of rhetoric only. He regularly maintained physical contact with workers on the shop floor, canteens, and residential areas to help them overcome fear and maintain the strike spirit. He equally instilled confidence in workers by encouraging them to use the force of tradition and power of culture to make the strike.

By personal example – including dressing like “a juju priest and brandishing his horse tail fan, which his followers and admirers believed to be the secret of his power and iron will” – Imoudu electrified workers by drawing bystanders into the strike, helping the weak to overcome fear, strengthening the activism of the activists, and intimidating British and African opponents of the strike.

Realising that workers’ strike is an organic component of popular struggles, he embarked on enlisting the support of critical social forces in society. He particularly paid attention to women organisations, stressing that whatever affects workers was bound to affect women as mothers, wives, daughters, and sisters.

He told them that workers’ struggles for improved conditions was organically connected with women’s struggles against taxation, exploitation, and harassment.

Imoudu’s mobilisation of workers and other social forces paid off. First, workers, in a rally called by ACSTWU’s leaders, resisted attempts to postpone the strike on the ground that it was “ill-timed” and to “afford the Government and the workers an opportunity to negotiate, and when negotiation failed to call out on strike”.

Secondly, when ACSTWU’s leaders, supported by Lagos’ traditional chiefs from the Palace of the Oba (King), went to government establishments to convince workers to postpone the strike, they were either “chased out with stones” or almost beaten up, because Imoudu: “had visited there earlier and had worked up the minds of the workers in favour of the strike action… Imoudu’s campaign had completely turned the tables.”

Consequently, the ACSTWU leaders resigned en masse, leaving Imoudu and his comrades in absolute control of the strike movement. Exactly at midnight of 22 June, 1945, the General Strike began.

Although Imoudu ignited the 1945 General Strike, it was, however, the readiness of workers to embark on the strike, and the popularity of the proposed strike amongst women groups, youth organisations, nationalist politicians, and journalists of the West African Pilot and The Comet, that agitated, energised, galvanised and propelled Imoudu to make the strike.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: [email protected]