On 22 June 1945 the African Civil Servants' Technical Workers' Union, the Railway Workers' Union and seventeen affiliated unions of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria withdrew their labour over the colonial government's refusal to grant the 50% Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) demanded since 1942 to compensate for wartime inflation that had eroded real wages by over 200%.
The strike was led by Michael Athokhamien Ominus Imoudu, President of the Railway Workers' Union — the man Nnamdi Azikiwe's West African Pilot christened 'Labour Leader Number One'. It lasted 45 days, paralysed the railways, the marine department, the Public Works Department and the postal service, and was joined by more than 200,000 workers, the largest organised labour action ever seen in colonial Africa to that date.
The colonial Governor Sir Arthur Richards banned the West African Pilot and the Daily Comet for publishing strike bulletins. The Tudor Davies Commission of Inquiry, convened in August 1945, conceded the COLA principle and recommended a 50% wage increase — implemented in 1946. The strike's enduring legacy was the radicalisation of Azikiwe (who narrowly survived an alleged assassination plot and turned to mass politics through the NCNC), the entry of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti into nationalist organising, and the template of general-strike politics that recurred in 1964 (Morgan Commission), 1981 (Hassan Sunmonu), 1993–94 (June 12), 2003 (Adams Oshiomhole) and 2012 (Occupy Nigeria).