Nigeria: Trade unionists in Nigeria: a state of crisis

Nigerian trade unionists have been the targets of human rights violations in the last year because they have called strikes in protest against military rule. At least four union leaders have been held in incommunicado detention without charge or trial since August and September 1994. They are: Chief Frank Ovie Kokori, Secretary General of NUPENG; Francis A. Addo, a vice-president of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN); Fidelis Aidelomon, chairman of the PENGASSAN branch of the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company; and Wariebi Kojo Agamene, president of NUPENG. This paper also gives information about decrees issued in September 1994 restricting the jurisdiction of the court to challenge government authority and actions proscribing newspapers and journals and dissolving the executives of the oil unions and Nigerian Labour Congress.