November 2024
Mobilize Workers’ Power to
Free Anti-Austerity Protesters
in Nigeria and Kenya
In Nigerian court on Nov. 2, 29 children arrested for protesting austerity, charged with treason, facing death penalty, were released after outcry. (Photo: Nation [Lagos, Nigeria])
The League for the Fourth International adds its voice to the demand for freedom for protesters under attack by the Nigerian government. Protests swept the country since early August against severe austerity measures by the government of President Bola Tinubu, including the elimination of a fuel subsidy which led to record increases in the price of food. Over 1,100 protesters were arrested and 21 killed by police on the first day (August 1) of the “End Bad Governance” demonstrations across Nigeria. In the next week, hundreds more of the largely youthful protesters were arrested and more killed for a death toll of 40 in ten days of unrest.
Some 124 of those arrested were kept in jail for over three months, at least 70 charged with ten felony accounts including treason, which carries the death penalty, for alleged participation in the demonstrations. Of those facing death, 29 were minors. Trials were scheduled to begin on November 8, but when the children were finally brought to court, they were visibly famished and several collapsed. In the face of the widespread outrage this caused, on November 5, the government released 119 of the arrestees and dropped charges against them, including all of the children. The fate of any others jailed in the August protest is not known at this time.
The government is using these draconian measures to head off worker unrest. The president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president Joe Ajaero was arrested by the Department of State Services, an elite police unit, in early September at the airport on his way to Britain for a congress of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). After protests by the TUC and human rights groups, he was released. In June of this year, the NLC called a general strike which blacked out the electricity grid and shut down the nation’s airports, but was “suspended” after one day.
Nigerian president Tinubu has also threatened military intervention against neighboring Niger to the north, where a 31 July 2023 coup d’état with wide popular support toppled the imperialist puppet regime. The new rulers then forced out French and U.S. expeditionary forces stationed there as part of “anti-terrorist” operations in the region. The Niger regime has since aligned with Russia, and in the Nigerian protests this past August, demonstrators in Kano, the country’s second largest city with a population of 4 million, prominently waved Russian flags.
Troops patrolling Kenyan capital Nairobi during anti-tax protests, June 18. A week later, security forces staged massacre, killing 50 protesters. (Photo: Luis Tato / Agence France-Presse )
The Nigerian demonstrations were inspired by the thousands-strong “Gen Z” protests in Kenya in June against austerity measures by the government of President William Ruto. The government’s finance bill raised taxes on fuel, bread, sanitary towels, diapers, telephone and internet services, tobacco, alcohol and other consumer products. When protesters stormed the Kenyan parliament on June 25, elite security forces unleashed murderous gunfire against them, reportedly killing 50. And while Ruto’s police were gunning down anti-tax protesters at home, he dispatched 400 Kenyan police as mercenaries for the U.S. to clamp down on unrest in Haiti. For services rendered, he was rewarded with a formal White House dinner with Joe Biden.
The international working class must come to the defense of all victims of imperialist policies which bleed their countries dry while the rulers and capitalist elites ride in limousines and reside in palatial mansions. Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with 200 million people, has some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, accounting for 95% of export earnings and 85% of government revenues. Despite these abundant resources, Nigeria’s population is one of the poorest in the world. As in many African countries, control of the state ensures income from graft and bribery and is the source of successive coups and military rule.
Kenyan police patrolling Haiti capital of Port-au-Prince for U.S. imperialism. For his services for the empire, Haitian president William Ruto received White House dinner with U.S. president Biden. Kenyan mercenaries, out of Haiti! (Photo: Odelyn Joseph/AP )
Kenya’s Ruto and Nigeria’s Tinubu are imperialist toadies, notorious for their globetrotting flights to foreign countries, averaging two to three each, every month, while their populations are mired in poverty. Tinubu attended university in the U.S. and was an executive for global accounting firms Arthur Andersen and Deloitte before returning to Nigeria as an executive for Mobil Oil. He was elected last year and almost immediately abolished fuel subsidies (in a county awash in oil) and devalued the currency. Austerity and the worst hyperinflation in over 30 years pushed millions more into ever-deepening misery. The population erupted in anger.
Pillaging of Africa by the West goes back to the millions of Africans who were abducted and lost their lives during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This was followed by conquest and colonial rule. At the 1885 Berlin Conference, Africa was carved up by the major imperialist powers. Even decades after the post-WWII anti-colonial movements won nominal political independence for most African countries, their vast natural resources continue to be sucked out by imperialist powers. Only a pittance is retained in the neo-colonies, with a bribed elite of local capitalists pocketing most of the proceeds.
Imperialist financial control by the World Bank and IMF ensures crippling indebtedness. Most of the poorest billion people in the world are Africans, who overwhelmingly toil in horrendous conditions. Meanwhile, during the COVID-19 the drug monopolies withheld millions of doses of vaccine from African countries. Only the international working class can end imperialist exploitation and murder. We call upon the world’s working and exploited peoples to defend the victims of capitalism with all our might – in Nigeria, Kenya and the world over – until international socialist revolution puts a final end to the rulers’ barbarism.
Drop all charges against Nigerian protesters! Down with the death penalty!
Hands off the Nigeria Labour Congress and all workers organizations!
U.S. mercenary Kenyan police out of Haiti!
League for the
Fourth International
7 November 2024