A fresh battle line is emerging within the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) over the political activities of some of its officials, following the national secretariat’s directive against members associating with a pro-President Bola Ahmed Tinubu support group.
The dispute centres on Working People United (WoPU), a political support platform led by the immediate past President of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Comrade Williams Akporeha.
The group’s activities have reportedly unsettled the NLC leadership, which is said to have directed presidents and general secretaries of affiliate unions to distance themselves from WoPU and its activities.
The directive came under scrutiny after the inauguration of WoPU’s Lagos State chapter in Lagos on Wednesday, where the Chairman of the NLC Lagos State Council, Comrade Agnes Sessi, emerged as the group’s state coordinator.
The event attracted notable political figures, including Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the APC governorship candidate in the state, Obafemi Hamzat.
But what appeared to be a political engagement quickly snowballed into an internal labour dispute, with the NLC national secretariat querying Sessi over her association with WoPU.
A memo dated August 11, 2026, and signed by the NLC Deputy General Secretary and Head of Information, Public Affairs and Education Department, Benson Upah, demanded an explanation from the Lagos council chairman.
The national leadership accused Sessi of failing to consult the Congress before associating with an organisation campaigning for Tinubu’s re-election.
The memo said her involvement “appears to be in violation” of the oath of office she took as chairperson of the Lagos council and raised concerns about her obligations to the Congress.
She was further accused of acting against the rules and directives of the NLC, supporting a parallel organisation and undermining the authority of the national body.
WoPU has, however, pushed back forcefully, accusing the NLC leadership of crossing the line between union administration and the political choices of individual workers.
Akporeha described the directive as an infringement on the constitutional right of workers to freely associate, citing Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of assembly and association.
He also referenced the International Labour Organisation’s principles on freedom of association, insisting that workers should be free to belong to organisations and support political causes of their choice.
According to him, the NLC’s core responsibility is the protection of workers’ interests and welfare, not the enforcement of political allegiance.
Akporeha alleged that the present NLC leadership was attempting to steer workers towards the Labour Party and repeat what he described as its political posture during the 2023 elections.
He argued that the NLC is made up of autonomous affiliate unions with their own constitutions and decision-making structures and that no individual leader has the authority to dictate the political preferences of their members.
WoPU described itself as a coalition of professionals, artisans, market men and women and workers in both the formal and informal sectors who have voluntarily chosen to support Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid.
The group said it was particularly concerned that individual workers could now be treated as having violated labour rules simply because of their association with a political support platform.
The confrontation has therefore moved beyond the activities of WoPU itself to a larger question of where the authority of the NLC ends and the constitutional rights of individual workers begin.
With the 2027 elections drawing closer, the dispute could expose deeper political fault lines within organised labour, especially as members of the movement increasingly take divergent positions on the presidential contest.
For the NLC, the challenge may be how to maintain institutional discipline without being accused of imposing political conformity on workers. For WoPU, the battle is increasingly being framed as one over the right of Nigerian workers to freely choose who and what they support politically.
