Just a few months ago all the talk was of Nigeria avoiding the effects of the world crisis of capitalism, the idea being that the local economy was not as integrated into the world financial markets as the more advanced economies. Then suddenly things started to change...
A major teachers' strike has broken out
in Nigeria over the question of a Teachers' Salary Scale. What is significant
is that 88% of the population is backing the strike. This fact alone reveals
the real feelings of the Nigerian working class and poor masses. It reveals the
potential for a much wider movement involving the whole of the working class.
Nigeria, like all countries, is being affected by the
sharp increase in food prices. Now the government, floating on the huge amounts
of petrodollars coming into the country, has ordered 500,000 tons of rice to
flood the Nigerian market in an attempt to get the price down. But will this
solve the problem?