Nigeria: How Imoudu Became ‘Labour Leader Number One’

In a paper I presented at the 20th posthumous commemoration of Comrade Michael Aithokhaimen Omiunu Imoudu’s passing in Lagos, Nigeria, I highlighted how he acquired the sobriquet, ‘Labour Leader Number One’

Imoudu, I stated, lived truly to his surname – “Imho-udu”; an Afemai-Edo word literally meaning “I have heart”; “Am lion-hearted”; “Am fearless”. “Imoudu” is a corruption of “Imho-udu”.

The Railway Workers’ Union (RWU) to which he belonged was not the first trade union in Nigeria. The Southern…