TRADE UNIONS AND THE DEMAND FOR DEMOCRATIC DIVIDENDS IN NIGERIA
The study was set out to establish the roles of trade unions (organised labour) in the democratic process and the demand fordividends of democracy embodied in good governance in the country.In that end, was the conceptual clarification of terms - democracy and trade unions. Hence, it was established that democracy being literarily defined as the government of the people, for the people and by the people, was meant to exist for the benefit of the people translated to what is popularly referred to in Nigeria as the dividends of democracy/good governance. It is the incentive and mouthwatering carrot that pacifies the people for the loss of their sovereignty to the state as instituted in the social contract entered into by both parties. Democracy in its philosophical and idealistic posture exists for the maximum benefit of the majority of the people.However, as practiced in Nigeria, those accruable benefits are usually elusive due to the nature and character of the operators of the system. Hence, the need for the proper positioning of the organised labour as a catalyst for the actualization of the expected dividends of democracythrough enacting of roles geared at political mobilisation of the workers/masses in the political process and formation of political party (Labour party in the country) or its alignment with other ideologically fitted political party aimed at wrestling political power from the bourgeois ruling class. The study noted that as noble as the objective might seem, its actualization was beset with constraints of elitist nature of the leadership structure of the Labour organisations itself, disunity among the labour organisations and paucity of fund for effective political mobilisation and education. Hence, suggestions for redress and proper positioning of the organised labour aimed at eliciting good governance/dividends of democracy for the citizenry were proffered.
