From Socialism Today, magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales).
It has been a tale of woes and anguish in Nigeria as the government, led by Bola Tinubu, has continued to unleash multiple attacks on the mass of working people, youth and the poor. Not only have living standards been driven down by continuous implementation of neo-liberal, anti-poor policies, but also brutal attacks and crack-downs on anyone or anything that appears to be in opposition to the government’s anti-poor policies.
Besides indiscriminate arrests, harassments and prosecution of protesters, journalists, activists and labour leaders, including the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), inanimate objects like books have also been the subject of attacks. For example, the Iva Valley bookshop, situated in the NLC secretariat, was invaded and books carted away by state security forces. These latest attacks by the Tinubu-led regime have been described by several citizens as a race to civilian dictatorship – one that is reminiscent of the dark days of military jackboot absolutism in Nigeria.
Given the pervading cost-of-living crisis occasioned by the disastrous policies of the regime over the 15 months since Tinubu came to power, mass anger has been mounting, with protests and strikes demanding better living conditions and an end to hunger. Already suffering from insurgencies in different parts of the country, and deep-rooted corruption of the political ruling elites, Nigeria was plunged into deeper crisis when, last year, the newly elected president launched an unprecedented neo-liberal programme that has undermined both living standards and the economy as a whole. The 2024 Global Report on Food Crises shows that Nigerians now rank second amongst the hungriest people on the planet, with 24.9 million people, over 10% of the population, affected by high food insecurity.
Inspired by the heroic protests and concessions won by the youth-led protests in Kenya between June and July this year, Nigerian youths prosecuted a ten-day protest in the first week of August, tagged #Endbadgovernance, to oppose the neo-liberal policies and massive corruption perpetrated by the ruling elites. While the president and his apologists have continued to try and sell the narrative that his policies are necessary reforms for the country, no less than 1% of the 2024 federal budget ($152m) has been officially spent for the comfort of the president and his family alone. This includes the recent acquisition of a new presidential jet, which cost about $91m, the purchase of official vehicles for the president’s wife, costing about $915,000, and a host of other expenditures to suit the ostentatious lifestyle of the political elites. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Nigerians can barely afford one square meal a day, according to numerous media reports.
The response of the state to the movement that took place across the country from 1-10 August has been that of the iron-fist, heavily cracking down on demonstrators and attempting to criminalise protests and constrict civic spaces. In the small hours of 5 August, Adaramoye Michael (Lenin), National Coordinator of the Youth Rights Campaign and leading member of the Democratic Socialist Movement (CWI Nigeria), was abducted alongside Mosiu Sodiq and others by officers of the National Intelligence Agency. They were blindfolded, detained, interrogated and held incommunicado in a secret venue without legal or family visits. Then, 17 days later, he alongside 123 others was remanded in detention for a further 60 days at a secret court hearing at which neither defendants nor defence lawyers were present.
Unsurprisingly, the court did the government’s bidding with no apparent enquiry as to the detainees’ wellbeing. This secret court decision only came out when the state news agency NAN reported it on 24 August. This also revealed the charges Michael and his co-defendants were being held on, namely, “criminal conspiracy, terrorism financing, treasonable felony, cyberstalking and cyberbullying”. In all, not less than 30 people were killed and over 2,000 arrested linked to the #Endbadgovernance protests.
The regime has continued to intensify attacks on voices of dissent. Trade union leaders, socialists, journalists and activists have been the major targets. Not only has the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Joe Ajaero, received two police invitation letters, he was also arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS, the renamed secret police) at an international airport and his passport seized, thereby preventing him from travelling to the TUC Congress being held in Britain. The threat of a general strike by the unions appears to have forced his release the same day.
Earlier on, Eleojo Opaluwa, a member of the National Union of Electricity Employees and a vice-chairman of Kogi State NLC, was arrested. Daniel Akande, a member of the Movement for a Socialist Alternative was also arrested 1 September. He was arraigned belatedly on the 26 September, becoming the eleventh co-defendant alongside Michael. On 15 September, Omoyele Sowore, leader of the Take It Back Movement, was arrested by the DSS and detained briefly on his return to Nigeria.
The government’s attempt to try to evade addressing the real demands of the protesters, looking instead for scapegoats, including blaming the protests on ‘foreign sponsors’ or Nigerians in the diaspora, is insulting as it tries to dismiss the fact that the excruciating conditions suffered by the Nigerian working masses are enough to stir up a resistance. An age-long Nigerian maxim is that a hungry person is an angry person.
It is clear that the regime is attempting to ramp up fear amongst the working masses and poor in its desperate bid to discourage future protests by hounding key leaders. The trumped-up charges against Michael and the other protesters include treason, which potentially carries a death sentence as the maximum penalty according to the criminal code in Nigeria. Indeed, one of the charges outlined in the charge sheet was that they were being arraigned for carrying placards with the inscription ‘End Bad Government’, with intent to overthrow the government.
One prominent feature of the protest, particularly in the north, was the waving of Russian flags by some demonstrators as a means of expressing their frustration with the regime and the system. The regime responded with arrests and there were strong indications from reports gathered that the state contemplated including this in the charge sheet to reinforce the charges of treason against Michael and others. Apparently, they had to drop this given the ridiculous nature of the charge just like all the other charges levelled against Michael and the rest. Some legal luminaries in the media have argued that there is no law in the country that criminalises waving or hoisting a foreign flag. However, it is important to respond to this event, as the indications were that the state’s planned justification to press that charge on Michael was that he answers to the sobriquet ‘Lenin’.
It would appear the government is worried that this event might be seen as a direct appeal for military intervention, potentially in the form of a coup. This concern is heightened by the fact that military juntas in the Sahel region – particularly in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger – have recently aligned themselves with Putin and Russia, viewing them as their new imperialist authority. Furthermore, it is on record that the coup plotted in Niger in July 2023 was greeted with some of the citizens trooping to the streets in celebration, some waving Russian flags. The CWI has analysed this as a reflection of a heightened anti-French imperialist sentiment as well as an anti-establishment mood amidst the lack of a genuine working-class political alternative. It’s clear that the fact that some northern States in Nigeria border some of the Sahel countries, including Niger, could be responsible for the spread of that consciousness.
Indeed, the northern part of Nigeria is bedevilled with multi-dimensional crises of poverty, insecurity, educational deprivation, etc. A recent report by Action Aid Nigeria revealed that 65% of poor people in Nigeria (86 million people) live in the north. A news report by Channels TV on 18 December 2023 also reveals how around 50% of out-of-school children in Nigeria (not less than five million children) come from the north. A clear testament to the contradiction and inequality created by capitalism, the richest Black man in the world, according to Forbes ranking, is Aliko Dangote, who hails from northern Nigeria.
Amidst the desperate situation in that region, and the lack of an organised working-class political platform to galvanise the anger and channel it towards challenging the system for genuine socialist change, it is unsurprising that there could be various forms of confusion, including an illusion in the military as a force to intervene and bring some stability.
At the moment, while the possibility of a military coup in Nigeria appears politically unlikely, it cannot be completely discounted if the organised working class does not prepare to form a mass working people’s political alternative that can mobilise the broad masses with a socialist programme to challenge the system and provide hope for the vast majority. There appears to be a growing dissatisfaction even in the military. A report by Sahara Reporters on 7 September revealed how no fewer than 196 had handed in resignation letters, with a number of them exiting to join military forces abroad like the British, Ukrainian and Russian armies.
The report also shared how many of the soldiers blamed the development on an increasing low morale caused by poor welfare conditions and deep-seated corruption in the ranks of the military. It went further, revealing that a number of soldiers were sympathetic to the #Endbadgovernance protests, something understandable given that the country’s crisis is hurting the vast majority of Nigerians. There is a possibility that this emergent disaffection in the military could snowball into a potential military intervention if the working masses do not fill the political void.
For the record, Michael Lenin, who is a member of the CWI in Nigeria, does not support the call for a military coup, and has remained steadfast in the fight for the formation of a mass working people’s party armed with socialist programme aiming to create a government that will wrest power from the thieving political elites in Nigeria and put the economy under the collective ownership and democratic control of the working class. This would enable the huge natural and human resources of the country to be utilised for the benefit of all and not the greedy few.
Furthermore, the attempt to draw a link between his sobriquet ‘Lenin’ and Putin’s Russia is ridiculous given that there can be no political or ideological link between Vladimir Lenin, who led the historic Bolshevik revolution in Russia, and Putin, who is at best a gangster capitalist politician. In fact, on 2 February 2022 the Financial Times reported how Putin, in a desperate attempt to justify the invasion of Ukraine, did not hesitate to blame Lenin for supporting the right of Ukraine to self-determination, up to the point of secession.
Following a massive campaign both in Nigeria and internationally, particularly in Britain, against the arrest and detention of the protesters, the government appears to have been forced to a retreat which saw ten of them, including Michael and Sodiq, granted bail on 11 September. However, the bail conditions were very stringent, including sureties with a sum equivalent to over $6,000 and also landed properties in the country’s capital city. This in a country where the new minimum wage is worth about $42 a month. Another condition, which attests to the purpose and intent to discourage future protests, is that they are banned from participating in any protests or even giving interviews throughout the period of trial. The campaign for the state to drop all the trumped up charges and release all the other protesters still in detention needs to continue.
All the conditions that gave rise to the protests in the first place are still very much on ground and have even worsened with the recent hike in fuel prices again in Nigeria. Therefore it is crucial for the trade union leadership in Nigeria, the NLC and TUC (the federation of senior staff unions), to live up to expectations by backing the campaign to free and acquit all the protesters. In addition, the trade unions should finally begin immediate mobilisation of their members for serious, not token, mass actions and a general strike to force the government to fully implement the minimum wage and reverse all the obnoxious neo-liberal policies like the fuel price hike, electricity tariff hike, fee increment across tertiary educational institutions and unity secondary schools, amongst others.
The reason the government and its apologists are quick to brazenly say that their neoliberal policies are the necessary hard decisions is because the trade union leadership is not boldly putting forward an alternative programme of nationalisation and democratic control. For genuine change to take place in Nigeria, there is an urgent need for the working class to fight for the formation of a mass working people’s party that can challenge all the pro-capitalist parties and take the wealth off the rapacious elites while placing the commanding heights of the economy under the collective ownership and democratic management of the workers, youth and the poor, to allow the country to finally seriously develop.
