“Tonight, I Say: Oppressors, You Have Not Silenced Us, You Have Sharpened Our Resolve”  – Joe Ajaero

On Wednesday, June 10, 2026, Comrade Joe Ajaero, President, Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, stood tall in Oslo, Norway, even as he was weighed down by the burdens of Nigerian Workers and the underprivileged, when he was given the prestigious Arthur  Svensson International Award which proud 2026 Recipient he is.

Following is the emotional and gripping speech he delivered to the high profile international attendees, all of whom were wrapped in absolute silence  by its contents, and brilliant delivery.

“That teacher who was kidnapped and beheaded in Oyo Forest and all the children in terrorists’ captivity with their teachers! We carry their blood, their sweat, their unbroken spirit to Oslo tonight”

Protocols!

Your Excellencies, comrades of the global working class, trustees of the Arthur Svensson Foundation, leaders of the Norwegian labour movement, leaders of Stryk, sisters and brothers especially comrade Alex Yarashuk!

I stand before you today not as a man, but as a symbol, a true symbol of millions of Nigerian workers who wake up every morning not just to the smell of tear gas, the sound of sirens, and the cold silence of a state that preys on its own people but who go to work hungry and come back hungrier more emasculated than before they left for work.

I receive this Arthur Svensson International Award; not as a trophy, not as a ribbon to hang on a lapel. Not at all. I receive it as a weapon, a weapon forged in the memory of a great Norwegian militant, Arthur Svensson, a man who knew that trade union rights are human rights, and that international solidarity is the only shield against the whip of rampaging multinational capital.

Let me sound it clearly and let it echo in every corner of this hall and across the Boardrooms in the world; the ruling class does not give you freedom. You take it; bloody-knuckled, with your lungs full of tear gas and your heart full of rage. At the back of our mind remains the cries and the pains of oppressed Nigerian workers.

I want to thank the Arthur Svensson Foundation from the depths of my scarred lungs. Thank you for your thoughtfulness! Thank you for refusing to look away from the Global South! In a world where capital moves at the speed of light while workers crawl under the weight of debt, you have chosen to spotlight those who fight in the trenches in the forgotten corners of the world. You have reminded us that the international working class is not a metaphor; it is a family. And tonight, that family has wrapped its arms around Nigeria. And, we can feel the warmth! To say I am deeply honoured is to put it lightly.

However, let me be honest with you, comrades, I had no idea that the Trustees of the Arthur Svensson Foundation were taking note of what was happening in Nigeria.

In Nigeria today, to defend a living wage is to become a target of the state. To demand that a worker should not die of hunger in a country swimming in crude oil is to be labelled an enemy of the state. I and my comrades, have been arrested like common criminals. I have been dragged before state agencies for questioning on trumped-up charges; charges of terrorism financing, Cybercrime, criminal conspiracy, Subversion and treasonable felony, of all things! Me, a trade unionist, financing terror? No! The only terror we finance is the terror that grips the heart of every exploiter when workers unite.

Our journey since 2023 has been harrowing; my home in Lagos was visited by unknown fire which razed the building down with all my personal belongings; I was abducted, detained and brutalized by the government for insisting on the implementation of an agreement that protects the rights of workers; I was harassed and arrested while on my way to Britain to attend a TUC UK conference to stop me from telling the world what we were going through in Nigeria; I have been invited for questioning repeatedly and just few weeks back, I was once again an unwilling guest of the nation’s secret Police and I have been placed on constant surveillance both passively and electronically sometimes trailed by unknown vehicles whose motives were clearly not charitable.

Our picket lines have been broken by security forces armed to the teeth. Our offices were raided on the 7th of August, 2024 while a detachment of security personnel was left to occupy our national secretariat forcing an evacuation of the offices by staff members. Our members have been sacked for demanding a minimum wage in the midst of hyperinflation. I have been detained illegally, questioned for hours, threatened in dark rooms; all because we refused to bow, because we refused to tell Nigerian workers that their suffering is normal. They have the jails, the guns, and the instruments of fear. However, we have the power; the power to stop the world, because we move the world. We create wealth! We are workers!

Yet, here I stand and not because I am strong! But because the working class is invincible walking and working together. Every time they silence one voice, ten thousand rise. Every time they tear down a picket line, two more appear. That is the law of labour. That is the dialectic of struggle. Arthur Svensson understood this. He stood against fascism, against capital’s exploitation, against the lie that workers are replaceable. Tonight, we say to the oppressors; you have not silenced us. You have only deepened and sharpened our resolve.

This award is not an end, it is a launchpad. It tells every driver, every teacher, every health worker, every woman selling tomatoes by the roadside under the scorching sun; your suffering is not in vain and can never be mute. Your resistance is not invisible. The world is watching. And more than watching, the world is ready to act in solidarity.

Let me be clear to the multinational corporations sucking the blood of our export processing zones, to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank whose loans are chains, to the Nigerian politicians already scheming for 2027, Nigerian workers are watching. Accolades do not pacify us but, they propel us. This award is not water on the flames; it is fuel for the fire.

We accept this honour on behalf of every Nigerian worker who has been tear-gassed, every union activist who has been victimised, every Nigerian worker who becomes poorer the more he works; every mother who has fought for her child’s future in a factory with no union. That teacher who was kidnapped and beheaded in Oyo Forest and all the children in terrorists’ captivity with their teachers! We carry their blood, their sweat, their unbroken spirit to Oslo tonight.

And we leave here with a promise; We will not rest; the Nigeria Labour Congress will not rest. We will deepen our organising among informal economy workers, platform economy workers, and the unemployed. We will resist every anti-labour law. We will expose every violation of ILO conventions. And we will win; because history is on our side.

As Marx said, the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the workers themselves. So let us go back to our picket lines, our factories, our streets. Let us organise. Let us struggle. Let us win.

Comrades, the struggle continues; and now, it continues with a new weapon; the Arthur Svensson Award in one hand, and the unbreakable solidarity of the global working class in the other.

In struggle, we trust. In solidarity, we conquer. Dare to struggle! Dare to win!

“OUR BLOOD IS NOT WATER: IT IS THE SEED OF A NEW WORLD”