[1] Along with, Michael Imoudu, Gogo Chu Nzeribe and Wahab Goodluck, they constituted the activist wing of trade unionism in Nigeria [2] during the Nigerian First Republic.
A split within the radical led to the emergence of Goodluck as NTUC president and Bassey as the general secretary.
[4] He believed in the inevitability of strikes, saying that employers are too greedy to channel some of their profits to workers’ welfare while government was no less myopic.
In 1974, Bassey and a few labour leaders, who were attending the burial of a colleague decided to move towards a united front, they signed resolution to fight on a common front and established a working committee that will convene a conference of all labour unions.
This resolution also known as the Apena Declaration of Trade Union Unity laid the foundation for the present Nigeria Labour Congress.,[6][self-published source]