On Sunday, 1 September, comrade Daniel Akande, member of MSA (ISA in Nigeria) was arrested by police in Abuja, the Nigerian capital. This is part of a campaign of repression by the government and the police following ten days of mass protest early August.
Repression and arrests are focused on the capital city, Abuja, as well as Kaduna and Kano states. Hundreds have been arrested over three weeks, since the #EndBadGovernancceProtest ended on August 10. Among them are activists and socialists.
Ten of them, including Michael Tobiloba Adaramoye of DSM were brought to Court September 2, and court documents (FHC/ABJ/CR/454/2024) point out that Tinubu regime is seeking death penalty for all of them for providing leadership for the protests for workers and youth to express their misgivings against hunger and growing poverty as against the false charges of treason and plotting to overthrow the government.
Reports say the arrested are tortured to give names of other activists, which is what led to the arrest of Daniel Akande. We know other comrades are on the list of those to be arrested by the police who are in a desperate bid to catch more of the organisers and active participants in the protest.
The main labor federation NLC and its president Joe Ajaero is also under attack. Its central office was raided and vandalised by police. Last week, when Joe Ajaero was summoned by the police, the union threatened a national strike if he was subsequently detained. We must call on the trade unions to not abandon these working class youth, to defend the right of protest as a democratic right and mobilise the necessary support and solidarity action to free all of those that have been arrested, and even insist on compensation for all those killed by the police and other security agents during the protest.
The accusations against those arrested are completely groundless, a position adopted by the NLC when accused of “financing terrorism”. The arrested activists are also charged of receiving money from suspicious sources abroad. The government has also accused one Mr. Povey, a British citizen of involvement of attempting a coup and declared him wanted.
This state campaign is based both on the government’s fear of protests and an attempt to show strength to create fear and paralyse the movement from below. How far it will go, with court cases, sentences etc, is not yet clear.
When Tinubu became president in May last year, the price of one liter fuel was 167 Naira, a 300% to 670 Naira has done nothing to put fuel in the stations. Currently there is dire scarcity that has shut the price of a litre to between 800 to 1,200 in the unofficial street market were fuel is easily procured than at fuel stations! Food prices are rising in a similar way. Naira is the second worst performing currency in the world. A series of strikes, many of them postponed by the union leaders, forced the government to increase the monthly minimum wage from 30,000 to 70,000 Naira (40 euro). This is yet to be implemented, and a majority of the governors in the state have been quoted to say they can’t pay.
The MSA and all labour leaning organisations conduct a campaign to drop the charges and free all the detained activists.
