In spite of being rich in oil Nigeria is in a state of collapse. Healthcare, education, transport, pensions and so on are all coming under attack. Unemployment is growing everywhere. An explosive mood is developing from below, while at the top the political leaders offer nothing but conferences, talk shops and so on. And yet it could be different, very different. It is in the hands of the leadership of the labour movement.
Millions of people are facing starvation in Niger. Are we to believe that this is another “natural” disaster, as the media would like us to? The fact is that there is food available in the markets of Niger, but the people cannot afford to buy it. Again, profit comes before the lives of the poor.
A series of very successful rallies have been taking place all over Nigeria
against the fuel price hike. Here we provide the pdf format of the article
we published earlier, Nigeria: Endless fuel price hikes. This was widely
distributed at the Lagos rally, and we are making it available as a PDF file for anyone to
print out.
Yesterday there was a
gigantic rally of protest in Lagos. The mood of anger simmering below the
surface for so long is now erupting onto the streets of the cities and towns of
Nigeria. This process marks the beginning of the end of the Obasanjo regime.
Nigeria is poised to join the many other countries where the masses have
successfully overthrown rotten regimes that are there only to serve the rich.
At
the end of August the Obasanjo regime in Nigeria upped the price of fuel massively. This has
provoked widespread anger among the workers and poor. Today the first of a
series of rallies is taking place. Here we publish the text of a special
leaflet produced for the occasion by the Nigerian Marxists of the Workers’
Alternative journal.