Before Covid-19 became a huge issue, the Lagos state government embarked on renewed attacks on informal workers in the State. Starting from February 1, 2020, 21 water – front communities were destroyed and over 50,000 people were rendered homeless in the course of the month of February. Around the same time, thousands of motor cycle taxi operators known as ‘okada riders’ were banned from operating in hundreds of inner- city routes and were immediately subjected to mass arrests.
The project made it possible for FIWON to respond to these two violent attacks on the rights of working people living in informal settlements and working in the informal sector. We addressed a well – attended press conference which in fact, became a Town Hall meeting with the mass attendance of affected workers, other NGOs and members of the press. We have no doubt that our intervention and subsequent media advocacy on the issue helped to put a stop to further arrest of the transporters while FIWON became the rallying point of efforts by several civil society organizations concerned about the fate of poor working people in the emerging contradictory policy frameworks of government interventions designed to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic (see https://www.sunnewsonline.com/informal-workers-want-lagos-to-reverse-actions-on-demolitions-okada-keke-ban/?fbclid=IwAR1eTK6kOZGKSSoGqIRBXcbwACJWdhIrFEEtGGPPZYssyB8I3XM6QqUzwDU)
FIWON/NATA Press Conference against evictions of Mechanic at Odo Aladura Mechanic Village, July 2020.
For example, FIWON is the lead organization in a Lagos State focused Network called Covid-19 Discussion Group comprising academics, NGOs, and CSOs (See Affe Mudiaga Extend Covid-19 Testing to Low Income Communities, Punch Newspaper April 8, 2020 https://punchng.com/extend-covid-19-tests-to-low-income-communities-says-csos/. This network was able to stop the Lagos State government continued evictions in several communities during the lockdown through vigorous engagements with the governor on Twitter (See April 23, 2020, https://theeagleonline.com.ng/lagos-suspends-demolition-of-illegal-structures-on-drainage-alignments/. FIWON is also a member of a broad based national coalition on Covid -19 response called Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB) with over 74 affiliate organizations including trade unions, CSOs, professionals etc with the well – known human rights activist, Mr. Femi Falana as Chairman (See April 30, 2020, https://guardian.ng/news/labour-csos-float-pressure-group-to-protect-vulnerable-nigerians). FIWON heads the Committee on Strategic Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic of ASCAB.
Also, see (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/05/coid-19-informal-sector-sets-7-point-agenda-for-govt/?fbclid=IwAR1Rmh0L_DrjlXzm-2VjNS1du0i_pu1bxaVyFYDnChmKNZfWXPAvnVFgtR4 ) and (https://iexclusivenews.com.ng/blog/2020/04/02/covid-19-updates-fiwon-says-drinking-water-sanitizer-social-distancing-are-luxury-give-new-ways-to-fight-the-pandemic-virus/?fbclid=IwAR22HwafnahyOHEJnt_sGqohJsz37822KF03OEPVL2bb3DY9Tzg6cKQiBbc)
The American Center for International Labour Solidarity (Solidarity Center) supported FIWON to organize three most vulnerable, most unorganized sectors of the Nigerian informal economy: the waste picking, street trading and domestic work sectors of the informal economy in Lagos State. The funding support enabled FIWON to conduct widespread organizing meetings with these categories of workers in many Lagos neighbourhoods towards the formation of statewide representative and democratic workers’ organizations in these sectors. The Solidarity Center also supported a rapid survey of the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on these three sectors with very revealing report which has also boosted our advocacy efforts. In the course of this organizing effort, FIWON was alerted about the case of over 150 domestic workers working with a multinational food company, DUFIL. The domestic workers were locked up from March, the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic and disallowed from seeing their families till September when they were now allowed to see their family after our intervention. After our petition to the company’s management was ignored, we publicized the case in the press and petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Eventually the lockdown on the workers was relaxed and they were allowed to see their family members under agreed terms.
Meeting with Waste Workers’ leaders, October 31, 2020
FIWON was also part of radical coalitions which emerged to protest continued police high handedness which became increasingly intolerable during the lockdowns. Scores of informal workers especially food vendors and traders dealing in food sales who were exempted from the lockdowns under Covid -19 safety protocols, actually lost their lives in the hands of police who claimed to be enforcing the lockdowns but were actually targeting these traders for extortion (See Coronavirus: Security forces kill more Nigerians than Covid-19 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52317196).