Employees of Air Peace Limited, West Africa’s and Nigeria’s largest airline, have publicly broken ranks with the ongoing industrial action by aviation sector unions, insisting the picketing currently disrupting flight operations in Lagos and Abuja neither represents their views nor their interests.
Speaking on behalf of the workers, Comrade Aminu Suleiman said that in the twelve years since Air Peace was established, employees have consistently had a direct voice in how the company is run, removing any perceived need to join an industrial union in the first place. He grounded the workers’ position firmly in constitutional and organisational law, pointing out that union membership is a matter of individual choice rather than obligation. “We can choose to join or not. It’s not by force. Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, guarantees the freedom of association,” he said, adding that the Trade Union Congress’s own governing rules affirm the same principle. “Section 12 of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) constitution also specifically states that membership of the union is voluntary.”
Beyond the legal argument, Suleiman framed the workers’ decision as fundamentally practical, arguing that Air Peace staff already enjoy many of the protections and benefits unions are typically formed to secure. “What do we need unionism for? For 12 years, we have been getting our salaries regularly. We have HMO. The airlines that were unionised, where are they today? They had no HMO, and the unions could not secure severance benefits for them,” he said, a remark that drew applause from the assembled workers.
The workers went further, accusing the unions themselves of fostering unnecessary division between employers and employees in pursuit of their own institutional interests, rather than genuinely representing worker welfare. They were emphatic that their absence from the picket line was a deliberate choice rather than an oversight, and appealed to the public not to conflate their position with the broader industrial action. According to Suleiman, Air Peace staff remain satisfied with the existing channels of communication they have with management and believe their interests are already being adequately addressed through that relationship.
The picketing itself, organised by members of the Nigeria Labour Congress, the Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, and the Trade Union Congress, has resulted in blocked entrances at departure terminals across Lagos’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport, including Terminal 1’s Alpha and Zulu sections and Terminal 2, as well as the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport terminal in Abuja. The action has significantly disrupted airline operations at both locations, leaving passengers stranded and forcing widespread flight cancellations and delays.
