Let me be honest from the outset: I hold a strong personal bias against NURTW and its activities. But this piece is not about sentiment, it is about what the law actually says. That said, let’s dig in.
Osun State’s recent move against the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) is only the latest chapter in a story Nigerians have watched repeat itself for two decades. A new government arrives, finds the NURTW leadership either uncooperative or politically inconvenient, and responds by banning the union’s activities in the state. The union pushes back, the courts eventually weigh in, and the cycle continues under the next administration. This piece traces the legal foundation of the NURTW, the judicial pronouncements that have shaped state power over it, and the recurring pattern of governors — including Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Lagos State governor — attempting to proscribe its operations.
Origins and Legal Status
The NURTW did not emerge as an ordinary voluntary association. It was created in 1978 when the federal government restructured Nigeria’s fragmented trade union landscape into industrial-based unions, with the NURTW becoming the umbrella body for road transport workers nationwide. That restructuring took place under the Trade Unions Act, later amended in 2005 following a bill sent to the National Assembly by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo. Because the union derives its existence from a federal statute, matters concerning its formation, regulation and dissolution fall under Item 34 of the Exclusive Legislative List in the Second Schedule of the 1999 Constitution — a list of subjects reserved exclusively for the National Assembly.
This distinction is the crux of nearly every legal battle between the NURTW and state governments: a governor may regulate motor parks, which the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution assigns to local government councils, but a governor cannot lawfully dissolve or permanently suspend a nationally registered trade union. Section 40 of the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of association, reinforces the union’s position further.
The Courts Have Spoken — With Nuance
The dispute between Oyo State and the NURTW illustrates the pattern best, running through three separate judgments over a decade. In 2011, Governor Abiola Ajimobi proscribed the union in Oyo State. The union’s chairman, Alhaji Lateef Akinsola, challenged the ban at the Federal High Court, Ibadan, in Akinsola & Ors v. Governor of Oyo State (Suit No. FHC/IB/CS/30/12). On 25 May 2012, the court declared the proscription illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.
Despite that ruling, Governor Seyi Makinde suspended NURTW’s activities in the state again on 31 May 2019, citing a breakdown of law and order, and directed government takeover of the motor parks. The union first challenged this at the National Industrial Court in NURTW v. Governor of Oyo State & Ors (Suit No. NICN/IB/41/2021), but that court dismissed the case on 23 March 2022, holding that the suspension did not amount to unlawful proscription. The union, represented by Femi Falana (SAN), appealed. In NURTW v. Governor of Oyo State & 3 Ors (Suit No. CA/IB/263/2022), the Court of Appeal, Ibadan overturned the lower court and held that a state governor lacks the constitutional power to proscribe or suspend a trade union registered under federal law — the strongest and most-cited precedent on this question to date.
The courts have not, however, ruled uniformly in the union’s favour. In NURTW & 2 Ors v. Executive Governor, Ondo State & Ors (Suit No. NICN/AK/14/2022), the National Industrial Court in Akure dismissed a similar challenge brought against Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s 2022 suspension of the union. The court drew a distinction between a public motor park, which falls under government control, and the union’s private business activities, holding that suspending NURTW’s operations specifically within public parks during a leadership crisis was a legitimate exercise of the governor’s duty to maintain order — and did not amount to an unlawful proscription of the union itself.
A related dispute played out in Lagos in 2022. In Ogungbeje & TUSON v. NURTW, RTEAN, NARTO & Ors (Suit No. FHC/L/CS/224/2022), the Federal High Court, Lagos, presided over by Justice Peter Lifu, restrained NURTW’s Lagos leadership, including Musiliu Akinsanya (MC Oluomo), from collecting union levies from commercial drivers who were not union members.
Read together, these judgments do not say a governor can never touch the NURTW. They say a governor cannot dissolve, proscribe or permanently shut down a federally registered trade union — but may, within limits, regulate conduct inside publicly owned motor parks during a genuine security crisis.
Tinubu and the Lagos Precedent.
Long before he became president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as governor of Lagos State, suspended NURTW activities in 2005 after security reports warned of possible attacks between rival factions within the union. The suspension fit the same template later followed by other governors: a security justification offered for what was, in substance, an attempt to rein in a union whose leadership controlled enormous informal revenue and political muscle within the state’s transport sector.
A Pattern Across Administrations
Lagos in 2005 was not an isolated case. Ajimobi proscribed the union in Oyo in 2011, and the courts struck it down in 2012. Makinde proscribed the union in Oyo again in 2019, and the courts struck that down too, in 2025. Governor Dapo Abiodun backed restrictive measures against the union in Ogun State in 2020. Governor Rotimi Akeredolu suspended NURTW operations in Ondo State in 2021–2022, and this time the courts sided with the government. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu suspended the union’s Lagos activities again in 2022 amid leadership disputes. And in July 2026, Governor Ademola Adeleke directed security agencies to halt all NURTW activities across Osun State’s motor parks after gun-involved clashes between rival factions in Osogbo, a move the union’s national leadership publicly rejected as unconstitutional.
Conclusion
What emerges from this history is not a series of isolated security interventions but a recurring political tool, and a genuinely unsettled area of law. Nearly every governor who has moved against the NURTW has framed the decision around public safety, yet the timing — almost always shortly after taking office or ahead of an election — suggests the underlying motive is frequently political control of motor parks and the revenue and street-level influence that come with them. The courts have consistently held that only the federal government may dissolve or proscribe the union itself, but they have just as consistently allowed governors room to regulate what happens inside public motor parks when violence breaks out. Until that boundary is tested again, or clarified through further litigation, the ban-and-defy cycle between governors and the NURTW looks set to continue.
Sources:
WITHIN NIGERIA, “Beyond Davido & MC Oluomo: Does a governor have the constitutional power to suspend NURTW activities?” (July 28, 2026)
Punch, “Appeal court nullifies Makinde’s ban on NURTW in Oyo State” (2025)
New Telegraph, “NURTW Proscription: Falana Decries Oyo Govt’s Disobedience” (October 2025)
National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Judgment Portal — NURTW & 2 Ors v. Executive Governor, Ondo State & Ors, Suit No. NICN/AK/14/2022
Vanguard / The Nation, “Court Bars Lagos Govt, MC Oluomo, Others from Collecting Union Levies” (May 2022) — Suit No. FHC/L/CS/224/2022
Benue State University Law Journal, “Trade Union Laws and Labour Relations in Nigeria: A Critical Examination” (2019/2020).
Olumide (ACIPM, HRPL) writes from Ibadan
