Allison Ayida was a leading civil servant in Nigeria during the early years after independence and during the civil war. As the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Development he was instrumental in shaping Nigeria's post civil war economy. Later in life he was on the boards of several companies and chaired a Nigeria bank. His autobiography sheds light on a generation of public servants and development economists over a period of four decades, which saw dramatic changes in the practice and politics of economics, and in the local and international environments.

This is the first of three collections, contributed to by teachers and practitioners of industrial relations, and providing up-to-date information on developments in industrial and labour relations in Nigeria. This collection examines existing orthodoxies on some theoretical and practical problems. Ten chapters cover labour process and labour relations; Japanese companies, labour and society: lessons for Nigeria; trade unions and the development process in Nigeria: an overview; state and labour: the 1988 ban of the NLC; organised labour and political parties in Nigeria; a decade of employer's associations in Nigeria; the growth of senior staff trade unionism in Nigeria; the registrar of trade unions: duties and responsibilities; public sector wage bargain in the 1990s: leading issues; and quantitative alchemy and strike trends in Nigeria.