Joe Ajaero, president of the Nigerian Labour Congress, trended in the media for controversial reasons last week. He had always been in the news, sometimes for altruistic reasons and others for stepping out of bounds. This time, it was for his mistaken belief that he was above the law.

When law enforcement agencies invited the labour leader to answer criminal allegations related to harbouring a felon, Ajaero chose to ignore the lawful invitation and attempted to leave the country. However, he was apprehended at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja and taken in for questioning.

Unsurprisingly, Ajaero’s fellow labour leaders and allies in the civil society were swift to denounce his arrest as violating his fundamental human rights. To them, it was yet another example of the Bola Tinubu administration’s inclination to stifle dissent despite mounting opposition to its economic reforms.

However, as Bayo Onanuga, the presidential aide on Information and Strategy, pointed out, the crux of the matter was equality before the law. Ajaero had disregarded a lawful summons before. On 19 August 2024, the police invited him to appear for an investigation the following day. He responded that he was busy and would only appear on 29 August. The Police indulged him. He reported on the appointed date with fanfare and was subsequently interrogated and released on bail.

A day after the interrogation, he was asked to report on 5 September for further questioning. Regarding the continuous invitation as harassment, Ajaero ignored the summons and elected to attend an international conference held in Brighton, the United Kingdom. Only an irresponsible internal security organisation would have allowed him to leave the country during the pendency of the criminal investigation.

Coming on the heels of recent protests of the rising cost of living, it was easy for the labour leader to sell the harassment and insensitivity to dissent narratives. If he expected the security agencies to fall for this blackmail, he was mistaken, as they resisted his attempt to generalise his failure to stay within the law.

Ajaero’s condemnable behaviour is typical of Nigeria’s big men, who take advantage of their position to break the law and expect nothing to happen. The feeling of being above the law is worse among perennial civil society agitators, who equate civil disobedience with criminal contravention. They use the government’s trust deficit to cross the line to fight for the public good.

Ajaero’s brush with the law arose from a Police investigation of Andrew Wynne, a Briton accused of a treasonable felony. He was a tenant in the Labour House, a facility owned by the NLC. The Police accused the Briton of financing the August protests and also charged him with levying war against the state. These were weighty allegations that the labour leader ought to cooperate with the Police to investigate, no matter how frivolous he thought they were.

Under some circumstances, a landlord could be liable for a crime committed by his tenant, except if he shows he did not have intent or knowledge that his premises were being used for criminal or fraudulent purposes. For instance, this is the intent of Section 3 of the Advanced Fee Fraud Act 2011. In Peter Obi’s Anambra State, the law allows the government to demolish and acquire any facility used by kidnappers to harbour their victims. No court proceedings are required.

So, as the president of the NLC that owned the facility linked to the accused felon, Ajaero was required to prove to the Police that the organisation did not know about its tenant’s alleged criminal activities. Simple. Rather than do that, he resorted to red herring and rabble-rousing, which was bound to elicit a strong-arm response from the security agencies.

Besides, it appears customary for the labour leader to blur lines. Social agitators tend to go beyond the call of duty and dabble in politics. Ajaero has been particularly accused of mixing politics with labour activism. While labour cannot be expected to insulate itself from political participation because politicians make decisions that affect its members, its leaders should be cautious.

The NLC president needs to exercise circumspection. He is not only a vocal member of the Labour Party but also controversial within the organisation. His partisanship makes it challenging to see the merit of his case against the government’s policies. Indeed, he needs to be less combative and comport himself better.

On 2 November last year, he was embroiled in a political dispute in his home state of Imo. Ostensibly fighting for the interests of the state’s workers, the All Progressives Congress-led government, amid an election, read political meaning into his action and ruffled him. It took the intervention of Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser, to extricate Ajaero from that crisis.

His prevailing brushes with the law suggest that he learned nothing from that experience. Bubbling in controversy within his LP, his public utterances on public policy are bound to attract partisan responses, particularly from a government battling rising resentment of its economic reforms. Those who argue he is a victim of the government’s hatred for dissent misconceived the situation. Is Ajaero the only vocal labour leader in the polity?

At least there is Festus Osifo, president of the Trade Union Congress. He co-led the agitations for the new minimum wage and has been equally critical of the government’s reform policies. He supported the August protesters’ demands to alleviate their suffering. Why have the security agencies not gone for him? One Deji Adeyanju, a lawyer, also actively led the protests and has remained vocal against the reforms. It is not on record that he has been hounded.

The fact is that agitation for anything, including good governance, must be conducted within the law. Those who mouth the rule of law must clearly understand that it means rule under the law. No matter his cause’s justness, no one can operate outside the law. This is the lesson Comrade Joe Ajaero must learn.             

Adebiyi is the special assistant on Media to the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu