Baba Aye's

It has now been 15 years since we lost Teslim “Samore” Oyekanmi. He was a fearless revolutionary, versatile unionist, brilliant activist, and unrepentant Mayist who lived life to the fullest. But alas, sickness took him away from us in his prime. And this was barely two years after we lost his partner, Zainab, a revolutionary Mayist in her own right. Teslim was Secretary General of the LASU Students Union towards the end of the last century. Zainab would later serve as Vice President and then Ag. President of the same union in the following session. I met Tes in the run-up to the election, where he emerged as SG of LASUSU. While I’d started full-time work in the trade union movement, I kept in close contact with the student movement, spending many an evening on campuses like LASU. He was recruited into the May 31st Movement (M31M, the precursor of today’s SWL) when he was a LASU union leader. And he remained a lifelong member of the movement. He was quite critical of a number o...

"Baba Aye...who also spoke to Sunday Independent, said that whistle blowing is es­sential for entrenching trans­parency and democratic values in any society. He, however, lamented: “But, not surprising, the class of ex­ploiters are hardly ever comfort­able about it. “They use states, which are primarily their means of repres­sion, to silence would-be-whis­tleblowers, or punish those who have successfully exposed them. “See what happened to Ed­ward Snowden and Chelsea Man­ning. See what is happening with Julian Assange. “So, it is not surprising that the Nigerian ruling class and its state are also not best friends with whistle blowers. “In my view, the best form of encouragement and support for whistleblowers can only come through organising from below. “Organised labour, radical civ­il society organisations and the mass media must support and encourage whistle blowing and whistle blowers.” Extract from:  Sunday Independent 29 June 2025 p.4

The Bola Tinubu administration has been on the saddle for two years. How do you see the state of the nation in these two years? My point of departure in responding to that question would be to draw from Malcolm X. He said something to the effect that there are two nations in every nation. The nation of the exploited and oppressed on one hand and the nation of the exploiter and oppressed on the other. For the poor working masses in Nigeria, the last two years have been terrible. Life has become terribly worse, and mere survival a great challenge. The cost of living has shot through the roof. The take home pay of workers cannot take them home. The 2024 minimum wage is meaningless. It is merely nominal. In real terms it is a wage cut compared to the 2019 minimum wage. But for the super-rich. Tinubu has been a blessing. As Oxfam pointed out in its inequality report earlier this year, this class of Nigerians wealth tripled between 2023 when Tinubu came to power and last year. Their riches...

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o bade this world goodbye on 28 May at the age of 87. Fare thee well, great griot of our pathways. Say us well to the ancestors whom you now join to be clothed with the earth from which we all must return. He was definitely one of the greatest writers of in the world. He gave us – Africa and the world at large – a profound depth of beauty, thought and inspiration with his work. He was also, in my view, the most representative of the spirit of Africa, of the numerous colossal figures of the word, that have been Africa’s contribution to the world and its literature. At childhood, his life was interwoven with that of the Kenyan people fighting against British colonialism, with all the consequences of this history. He  was named James Ngugi at birth. This was name he used to publish his first novel Weep Not Child . But he threw away the slave master's name, renaming himself in line with the ways of his forbears. He did not just criticise the past of colo...

Comrade Baba Aye, a veteran trade unionist and activist, is Co-Convener, Coalition for Revolution (CORE) and a Council Member of the Progressive International (PI). Baba Aye, a former Deputy National Secretary, Labour Party (LP)  former National Convener, United Action for Democracy (UAD) and Member of the National Implementation Committee of the Campaign for Democracy (CD during the June 12 struggle), in this interview with  EJIKEME OMENAZU , speaks on the State of Emergency in Rivers State among other crucial national issues. Excerpt: How would you react to the recent declaration of a State of Emergency in Rivers State by President Bola Tinubu? President Bola Tinubu’s decla­ration of a state of emergency in Rivers state is ill-motivated and un­dermines the democratisation pro­cess in Nigeria for what it is worth. In one fell swoop, it has set back the democratic project, questionable as it definitely is, by decades. A state of emergency is essentially just another name f...

The top echelons of the Nigerian senate have repeatedly claimed that the allegations of sexual harassment levelled by Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan against Senate President Godswill Akpabio has nothing to do with her suspension from the Senate for half a year. According to the cock and bull story they want us all to believe, it is simply because she ostensibly flouted internal rules guiding the Senate procedures.  This position which had been peddled within the national sphere was echoed by the Senate Leader, Senator Bamidele Opeyemi speaking last week, faraway in New York through the mouth of Hon Kafila Ogbora , the chairman(!) of the house committee on women affairs and social development.  This was at a session of the International Parliamentary Union, which was organised as one of the activities of the 69th session of United Nations Conference on the Status of Women (CSW) that takes place there every year around the International Women’s Day.  Senator Akpoit-Uduaghan appear...