ADAMS ALIYU OSHIOMHOLE – GOVERNOR OF EDO STATE

Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole was born on April 4, 1953 at Iyanmoh, near Auchi in Edo State. After his secondary education, Adams Oshiomhole proceeded to the Ruskin College, Oxford where he majored in economics and industrial relations. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru.
In 1969 before his tertiary education, he had taken up appointment with the Arewa Textiles Company. He was inspired to play an active role in the union because he was not satisfied with the quality of the union’s leadership. Oshiomhole’s other colleagues in the textile factory elected him as the union secretary after a shop-floor revolution, which he helped to organize. He became a full-time trade organizer in 1975.
In 1982, Adams Oshiomhole was appointed by the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria as their General Secretary, a union with over 75,000 workers. As General Secretary of the union, he became a major actor and catalyst in the Nigerian Labour Congress and the wider radical movement in Nigeria. With the restoration of democracy to Nigeria in 1999, Oshiomhole became the 4th president of the NLC. He led the NLC and the rest of the Nigerian people to resist arbitrary increases in the prices of petroleum products. He personally led the strikes, demonstrations and protests, which decisively helped to moderate the Obasanjo Administration on its harsh fuel pricing policy and other social and economic policies, which would have endangered the welfare of the people. In 2006, the Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma awarded him a honorary doctorate of law degree. At the International level, Oshiomhole’s services have been in high demand. He represented African Workers for two terms on the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
He served on the powerful committee on Freedom of Association of the ILO, which is the only international tribunal on workers’ rights issues. He had been on the Executive Board of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
In April 2007, he was overwhelmingly elected Governor of Edo State on the platform of the Action Congress Party, with which Oshiomhole’s Labour Party had entered a strategic alliance. However, he was denied victory and many people were rightly outraged by this denial and rose in unison to protest. Oshiomhole led the people to defend their votes and this struggle was rewarded first by the Edo State Election Petition Tribunal. He was re-affirmed and restored on November 11, 2008 by the Court of Appeal. On November 12, 2008, he was formally sworn in as the Governor of Edo State. Gubernatorial elections are not due in Edo State until 2012