Historical accounts state that the coal workers, agitated by rising inflation and the failure of the management to recognize the Colliery Workers Union had started to demand for increases in their wages and the recognition of their union as far back as 1944. However, matters came to a head in November 1949 when the workers decided to embark on a work-to-rule strike to drive home their points: they refused to work for longer than the minimum required hours and operated strictly within the confines of their minimum deliverables and thus considerably slowed down the operations of several coal mines. Three days into the work-to-rule strike, the management attempted to sack 200 hewers. For several days the fired hewers occupied the mines so they would not be replaced by new recruits. In solidarity with their husbands, the miners’ wives protested at the colliery’s office destroying equipment and breaking windows. In response, the management called the police to disrupt the protests and in the fracas that ensued, some of the women were wounded. Even that event did not dislodge the miners. The tenacity and wide support for the protests led the colonial government to believe it was an insurrection with communist backing and that it was instigated by members of the Zikist Movement, who were agitating for national independence. It also feared that the protesters would steal the explosives from the mines and use them in terrorist attacks. It therefore dispatched 900 soldiers and policemen from the northern part of the country to dislodge the miners and secure the explosives. The ensuing standoff between the colonialists and the miners led to the killing of 21 and the grievous wounding of 51 unarmed miners by the Colonial Police. Historical records cite that Captain F.S. Philips, a colonial officer vexed by the striking miners’ solidarity chants, fired the first shot, which hit a hewer - Sunday Anyasado - in the mouth, killing him instantly. Another military officer joined Captain Philips in shooting at the protesters and in the aftermath of the ensuing mayhem, 21 miners were dead. https://ng.boell.org/2015/12/03/history-history-coal-nigeria

What a history. I still wonder why successive governments have ignored Iva-valley even before independence

And here, in 2008, both victor and victim are but history books. Everyone dies. Not everyone really lives.

The biggest failure we have is not remembering our history and passing these on...in book, school curriculum, film, theatre etc...