With barely a week to Christmas—a season meant for peace, hope, and reunion—the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has sounded an alarm that echoes across the country. On December 17, the NLC will lead a nationwide protest, a cry of desperation and defiance against the storms battering the nation.
The decision, forged during an intense National Executive Council meeting at the union’s Sub-Secretariat in Yaba, Lagos, on December 4, comes amid a rising tide of insecurity, a collapsing tertiary education system, paralyzing strikes in the health sector, and what the union describes as growing political sabotage within the Labour Party.
Security, the council warned, has deteriorated to a terrifying low. They recalled with grief and fury the November 17 abduction of 24 schoolgirls from a boarding school in Kebbi State—a night of horror that claimed the lives of two staff members. Even more disturbing, the council said, was the withdrawal of security personnel shortly before the attack. The message to government was unmistakable: abductions targeting children have escalated to a perilous threshold, and failure to act could invite tragedies too grave to imagine.
But the fears do not end at security.
Poverty, the NLC declared, has wrapped itself around the nation like a tightening noose.
Citing the World Bank’s Nigeria Development Update of October 2025, the congress warned that an estimated 139 million Nigerians—nearly two-thirds of the population—are now trapped below the poverty line. For millions, this Christmas brings hunger rather than celebration.
Education, once a ladder of hope, is collapsing under neglect. The NLC painted a bleak picture of university campuses: crumbling infrastructure, obsolete research tools, unpaid allowances, and a growing sense of abandonment among lecturers and students alike. The union urged the government to restore dignity to the ivory towers, beginning with fair and equitable pay for all categories of university workers.
In the health sector, the crisis deepens. The ongoing strike by the Joint Health Sector Unions, which began on November 14, has left hospitals in disarray. The NLC expressed alarm over reports of nurses breaking ranks and warned that if the government fails to broker a meaningful agreement, the Congress and its affiliates may fully join the industrial action—an escalation that could plunge the sector into unprecedented turmoil.
Amid the turmoil, the NLC announced plans to revive the Labour–Civil Society Coalition, a move aimed at forging stronger alliances with civil society organizations and rallying a unified front against the nation’s mounting challenges.
Thus, as Christmas lights flicker across Nigerian cities, the NLC prepares to march—its December 17 protest a stark reminder that for many citizens, hope is dimming and the future demands a reckoning.
