Published 7th Dec, 2023

By Tola Owoyele

On Thursday, news made the rounds that Frank Kokori, a former general secretary of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), had died after a long battle with a kidney-related ailment.

The labour leader died around 1:30 am at a private hospital in Warri, Delta State.

Coincidentally, he passed away on his 80th birthday.

Born on December 7, 1943, Kokori attended Urhobo College, Warri, between 1959 and 1962, and Eko Boys High School, Lagos, between 1963 and 1964 for his secondary school education.

He obtained a bachelor’s degree at the University of Ibadan in 1974 and in 1984, proceeded to the Institute of Social Studies, Hague, Netherlands, where he bagged a master’s degree in labour and development studies.

Until the end of 1999, he dominated the labour management relations of the Nigerian oil and gas industry for 22 years as NUPENG leader.

ARRESTED AND INCARCERATED FOR FOUR YEARS OVER JUNE 12 STRUGGLE

After the result from the presidential election that was held on June 12, 1993, and believed to have been won by late M.K.O Abiola, was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida, the then Nigerian military leader, Kokori, who was the then general secretary of NUPENG, mobilised workers in a protest against the junta’s decision not to recognise the election outcome.

The decision led to a nationwide scarcity of petrol as NUPENG workers stopped the distribution of petrol and other products.

In addition to leading the oil workers’ strikes, Kokori was actively involved in pro-democracy activities.

The trade unionist ended up spending four years in prison after he was arrested by Sani Abacha, another military head of state, due to his activism.

Years later, he published a book, The Struggle for June 12, on the annulled election.

In the book, Kokori detailed the roles he and other individuals played in the quest to get the then military government to re-validate the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

‘AFRICAN LEADERS ARE A DISGRACE TO THE CONTINENT’

In an interview he granted in 2020, Kokori said Nigerian leaders, and by extension, African leaders, had disgraced the African continent.

“I was already in secondary when we got independence. I was very abreast with politics at that early age; we read newspapers; listened to radio, followed Azikiwe, Awolowo, Tafewa Balewa, Ahmadu Bello and the rest,” Kokori said in the interview.

“We knew them off hand – our own generation. We were very conversant; even at the age of 14, 12, we were already involved in knowing everything about politics in this country.

“So, people like us were very confident that Africa would catch up with the western countries, not even the Asian countries. We didn’t take Asian countries seriously at that time.

“We didn’t take Indian degrees seriously. That time, when somebody came to Nigeria with an Indian degree from an Indian university, they would tell you that it’s like A Level.

“Even American degrees were not taken seriously. It was only the UK degrees from Cambridge, from Oxford, from all the serious universities that we took seriously.

“Then, University of Ibadan, you coudn’t beat it; it was world class. The teaching hospital was world class. So, we thought by now we should have been flying. But unfortunately, we have African leaders who have disgraced the continent.

“And today, people like us sit and weep when we see black people crossing the Mediterranean Sea and Sahara Desert looking for green pastures in Europe.

“And then we now remember people like Kwame Nkruma, people like Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda, the Azikiwe and the Awolowos. if these people were still here, we wouldn’t have this type of stings and humiliations of the black people of the continent.

“In Nigeria, we were at a higher pedestal than countries like India, Malaysia and the rest.

“When I started unionism in the ’70s, when I started traveling round the world, I wasn’t impressed with what I saw in the Asian countries. I saw people riding bicycles.

“We were far ahead of them, but look at us today, we have become a beggarly nation. The whole problem is corruption. We were thinking that by now, a good leader must have come out to wipe out corruption, because all the problems we are having today are about corruption.”

THE RESCUER OF THE OPPRESSED

During the same interview, he was asked what he would love to be remembered for. In his response, he said the following:

“I want to be remembered for being a good man. I’m a good man, and I’m proud to say it. If you are oppressing somebody where I am, I will be emotional; tears will be coming out of my eyes and I will try to rescue that person,” he said.

Kokori won many awards for being an activist and proponent of democracy.

Among the awards he won was the George Meany Labour/Human Rights award by the American Federation of Labour/Congress of Industrial Organisations (AFL/CIO) for the most outstanding labour leader in the world for 1996.

In 1998, he also won the Febe Elizabeth Valasquez Trade Union/Human Rights award of the Dutch Labour Federation (FNV) for the most outstanding labour activist and human right crusader in the world for 1998.

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