How Former NLC President, Chiroma Died

The Secretary of the Borno State Council, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Ali Ibrahim Ciroma has disclosed how a former president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC) Ali Chiroma died.

The late 91 year old was the president of the NLC from 1984 to 1988 but was forced out of office by the then-military administration of Gen Ibrahim Babangida.

According to NUJ Secretary, Chiroma died at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, Maiduguri, Borno State capital, on Tuesday.

He said, “It is with deep sorrow that I announce the death of Comrade Ali Chiroma, former President of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

“The burial for the repose of the deceased will be held tomorrow Wednesday 4 pm at the residence of the deceased No.7A along Galadima Road near Muhammadu Shuwa Memorial Hospital (Nursing Home), Maiduguri.”

Biography

Chiroma spent his early years in Maiduguri, Borno State. He attended Yerwa Elementary School and Borno Middle School (1945 -1949).

Chiroma joined the trade unionism at the age of seventeen and was president of the Rural Health Workers Union in 1960.

In 1978, after many smaller trade unions coalesced into 42 industrial unions, Chiroma became deputy president of the Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria.

At the NLC congress in 1981, he was voted as the union’s deputy president. He was voted president in 1984, succeeding Hassan Sunmonu.

Chiroma’s tenure began at the onset of a change in government from a democratic administration that was ended by a military coup in December 1983.

In 1986, a new military president proposed changes to the Minimum Wage Act that would increase the employee threshold for businesses to be bound by the act, the proposed change was from employers with 50 employees to a new threshold of 500 employees.