Life for Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole began on the 4th of April 1953 in Iyamoh, a little community near Auchi in present day Edo State.

The two parents evidently packaged a good product that would have been as reliable as the Mercedes Benz, had he been a car, or as popular as coca cola, had he been a beverage.

On the other hand, looking at the height of Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole, it was obvious there might have been one or two quality-control gaps in the production. Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole is somewhat of a short person in terms of height, but what he lacks in height, he makes up for in the sheer quality of his intellect and the abundance of courage and will.

Education for Adams was not a matter for the school system alone. Like every other kid, Adams learnt and knew Algebra, Mathematics, English, Geography and all the other stuff. However, the young Adams was taught something that is known as good character in the African worldview by a father whose strength of character became a fountain from which Adams drew powerful inspiration. Even as an adult, it is in the character of Adams to always invoke his father’s name each time he has to make a point with strong moral content.

He learnt the simple but profound lessons about life from a father who radiated goodwill towards all. His father preached the ideals of hard work and diligence with a religious intensity. Above all, he taught him that life was about keeping faith with what you believed.

His mother, Alhaja Oshiomhole radiated affection and indulgence and instilled in young Adams the values of generosity and selflessness.

Adams Oshiomhole’s worldview became distilled and refined by his early encounters with the real world, especially the world of work. In 1969, he got himself thrown out of a factory because a manager felt Adams was too short and frail to endure the reality of factory labour. This firsthand contact with arbitrariness and cruelty shaped his perception that justice and fairness are not always on display in the world of work. This was for him a great challenge even in those early days.

However, he got a job all the same because another manager in the same factory was willing to give him a chance to earn a livelihood and prove that he could be useful. This was for Adams a reward for capacity to make his case with clarity and persistence.

From his desk at the design section of the Arewa Textile, he observed the vast evidences of criminality perpetrated by management and its agents. The pay was poor. The disciplinary regime was brutal, authoritarian and unsparing, leaving no room for fair hearing or any hearing at all.

Above all, the union leaders were considered ineffective, weak and timid by the workers who did not get value for their membership of the union. One word summed his assessment of the situation: injustice. Another word summed up his perception of what is required to make a difference: good leadership.

In the year 1971, a spontaneous uprising earned him an opportunity to prove himself as a union leader. Many of his colleagues somehow felt that the young Adams could make a difference because they found in him a certain tenacity and purpose in the way he canvassed the principles of fairness and justice and the way he expounded on the need for purposeful and responsive union power.

Admittedly, some of his colleagues considered the young Adams a noise-maker and an idealist, who still does not appreciate that the workplace is place to earn a meal ticket and not a platform to change the world. However, what came across as noise in Adams Oshiomhole was actually a fierce rejection of injustice and an outstanding resolve to stand up to it.  The journey to an eventful and successful career in the trade union movement had thus begun.

In 1975, he abandoned the textile mill and became a full time unionist. He had found his calling and identified the union as an enduring platform to fight injustice and oppression.

His early career as a full time unionist was like a study in anarchism. As an organiser, he terrorised many employers in Kaduna and adjoining towns. Adams Oshiomhole as a union organiser cruised Northern Nigeria on what is today known as Okada. Then, union leaders did not enjoy the luxury of cars or jeeps. Adams was critical to establishing and sustaining union presence in many textile mills and other industries, including Peugeot Automobile, under extremely difficult circumstances.

He later studied Labour Studies at Ruskin College, Oxford, specialising in economics and industrial relations. At the end of the demanding and rigorous multi-disciplinary programme at Ruskin College, Adams emerged as the Best Foreign Student. Higher education equipped him with enhanced theoretical and intellectual acumen. He is also an alumnus of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, kuru, and the Kennedy School of Government of the Howard University.

The intellectual sophistication acquired by Adams Oshiomhole in Oxford combined well with the ethics and values of the shop-floor. This in turn combines well with Oshiomhole’s extraordinary capacity for self-education, hard work and strength of character that was rooted in his upbringing.

In 1982, he was appointed the General Secretary/Chief Executive of the National Union of Textile and Garment Workers of Nigeria. It was obvious that a genius was on board. The capacities that he brought on board transformed the union fundamentally. A union that could not pay staff salaries became in less than a decade a prosperous institution. Under Adams, the union was well managed and eventually acquired investments in real estate and generated a cash reserve that is more than what many state governments can boast of.

He gave the union an institutional profile founded on efficient departmentalisation, internal democracy and a responsible officership culture. As a negotiator, Adams acquired a reputation for achieving results, which translated to enhanced fortunes for textile workers. His brilliance as a negotiator or grievance-handler is founded on his first-class capacity for articulation. He also has capacity for deep and original thinking which filters out from a mind that he has trained to be methodical and organised. He is able to absorb and process complex and diverse details, which sharpen his problem-solving skills.

It was only a matter of time before he became a major player in the politics of the NLC. He was elected deputy president of the NLC in 1988. Even as a deputy president, he established enough clout to be the flag bearer of a tendency that espoused independent and militant unionism. Those who opposed the mainstream politics of collaboration of the labour movement rallied under Adams Oshiomhole.

With the dissolution of the NLC by the military in 1995, Adams Oshiomhole and others went into the trenches. The movement became a terrain of fierce contestation between the Abacha Regime and comrades who believed that labour must be rescued. Adams Oshiomhole and a few others gave leadership to the resistance to the military at great risk to their lives. Indeed, at some point, the military government enacted a decree with the sole purpose of disqualifying him from contesting for the NLC Presidency.

With the restoration of democracy and the return of the NLC, it was time for the movement to reward tenacity, courage, brilliance and integrity. Adams Oshiomhole became president of the NLC on January 28, 1999. The rest of the story is now known to all of us.

A popular commentator once called him “Hurricane Adams” comparing him to the velocity and power of the hurricane. At other times, the press tagged him “Adamant Adams”. More recently, he is hailed as “The People’s President” by the high and mighty, in newspapers, on the campuses, in the streets and by public officials. What ever the characterisation, the reference is to the quality of his resolve in the defence of workers and the masses, and in upholding good governance, democracy and public welfare.

As President of the NLC or as the People’s President, Adams Oshiomhole has led massive civil protests and strikes against arbitrary increases in the prices of petroleum products.  Through these struggles, Nigerians have benefited from significant respites, including reversals in price increases. Now, thanks to the People’s President, Adams Oshiomhole, President Olusegun Obasanjo has announced that there will be no fuel price increase until the end of 2006, no mater what happened in the international market. But this is coming after sustained struggles led by Oshiomhole, which prompted President Obasanjo to make him the subject of a nation-wide Presidential broadcast on October 8, 2004 in which an angry Commander-in-Chief accused the labour leader of virtually constituting a parallel government.


His leadership of the NLC secured significant salary increases for all workers in the country in May 2000, including a subsequent 12.5 per cent salary increase for workers across board. Under his stewardship, NLC has become public protector number one.

The Punch newspaper declared him Man of the Year in the Year 2000, in recognition of the immensity of his contributions to popular struggles. The Guardian and Newswatch Magazine also named him Man of the Year 2005.

The reasons are fairly obvious. Adams Oshiomhole demonstrates such a profound and informed understanding of democracy and governance. His comments and writings  show a deep understanding of the Nigerian condition, especially the acute deficits of humane, purposeful and progressive leadership.

A major contribution of Adams Oshiomhole to the democratic development of Nigeria is in giving leadership to a creation of a culture of radical and critical citizenship, a citizenship that can question their leaders, demand good policies and insist that public welfare must be the basis of governance. This critical and militant citizenship has been on display several times defying traditional regional, ethnic and other primordial divides. Adams Oshiomhole is at the head of a truly people’s movement, not a movement of Southern or Northern people, but a truly Pan-Nigerian movement. Therefore, Oshiomhole’s leadership of labour has been a nationally unifying factor in its effect. Herein lays one of Oshiomhole’s most profound contributions to national progress.

In this process, Adam Oshiomhole has come to exemplify the nation of the common good. Because of this, Nigerians listen to Oshiomhole when he speaks and Nigerians follow him whenever and wherever he has marched. Never in Nigeria’s history has any leader commanded such level of public trust and wide followership cutting across all barriers and so consistently.

But his most significant contribution is in teaching Nigeria and Nigerians the need to stand up to constructive and positive values, stand up to defend public welfare, the rule of law and good governance.

The culture of protest has grown as we can all see, a testimony to how much of our dignity we have come to appreciate under the inspiration of the People’s President. Nigerians now increasingly see the value of combining and acting together for their good. This culture of organised protest is today the real tonic that democracy needs; it is the vehicle for asserting human dignity and for seeking a better deal in all things. This culture was on display when Senators went on strike in early 2005 to protest a ministerial insult; it was on display when lawyers boycotted the courts; it is on display when any Nigerian decides to assert his or her dignity. The net benefit of the Oshiomhole phenomenon is the way it symbolises the defence of human dignity and the way it constructively influences us all.

Adams Oshiomhole has served the nation in various capacities. Among these are: