workingclasshistory:

On this day, 18 November 1949, security forces massacred 21 striking miners and a bystander at the British government-owned coal mine at Enugu in Nigeria. Britain’s Labour government was keen to maximise output in order to fund the rebuilding of infrastructure and repay debts to the US in the wake of World War II.
The miners, many of whom were British Army veterans who served in Southeast Asia, had occupied their mine demanding backpay for a period of time where they were paid according to a casual system called “rostering” which was later declared illegal.
The British Colonial Office had dispatched union bureaucrats from the Trades Union Congress all around the Empire in order to try to organise workers in ways that their discontent could be integrated into the system. A local TUC adviser tried to divide the mine workers up into five separate branches, which ran contrary to the local Igbo workersJiffy culture of organising together in mass meetings, so they ignored him.
Since striking was illegal at the time, workers began a wildcat go-slow, adopted from miners in Durham, England and known as “welu nwayo” in Igbo. The workers were sacked, so they then occupied the mine.
Violence began when a British policeman, Captain FS Philip panicked when he saw some of the African miners dancing and chanting and shot a young miner called Sunday Anyasado, killing him. He then killed a machine worker, Livinus Okechukwuma, and when, hearing all the noise, Okafor Ageni emerged from the mine to ask “Anything wrong?” he was murdered. Shooting continued for several minutes, hitting dozens of workers, many in the back, and security forces left the wounded to die on the ground. In addition to 22 deaths, 51 people were wounded.
The massacre fuelled rapid support for the anti-colonial movement.
Pictured: a monument to the massacre https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1856685887849886/?type=3