Baba Aye's

The National Bureau of Statistics release that poverty is on the increase in Nigeria with over 70% of its citizens (ie over 70% of Nigerians) living below the poverty line (ie $1 = N160 per day) is really no news to us. On the contrary, it goes to confirm the lie of NEEDS which SURE amplifies that on the basis of capitalism in general and its neoliberal practice in particular, like could be made b...etter for more Nigerians. The increase in fuel prices will make matters worse, indeed has started making matters worse and now we have been told by the Nigerian state that electricity tariff would be increased by 88% in about a month's time & further that we should still expect another increase in the price of petrol any time from now. What is to be done? We demonstrated this in January, a sign of things to come: build workers & youths power on the streets to reclaim our destiny & this time...take it to the logical conclusion of kicking out the capitalist fat cats, emancipat...

When Zuccotti Park was taken over on September 17 by a few hundreds of protesters, marking the beginning of what would become the Occupy Movement, the mainstream press where it gave the event any attention at all considered it as “irrelevant” and a sort of “circus”. The billionaire Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg felt the occupation demonstration was harmless enough and could be easily kettled. Qith ease then he had said "people have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we'll be happy to make sure they have locations to do it.” Today, the call to “Occupy Everything” rings across some 80 countries in the world sparking actions of protesters taking over streets with tents in well over a hundred countries at some time or the other. The apogee of this global protest occupation was on October 15 commencing the generalisation of the occupy movement as an international trend of alternative politics, in a sense and more aptly as an alternative narrative signifier in w...

Introduction Few in Nigeria would have the feeling that 2012 is barely a month old. The past few weeks have been filled with events of historic proportions. First, in response to the unpopular 120% hike in petrol price, the people spontaneously took to the streets across the country in stiff resistance and with an 8-day general strike and mass protests, won a stunted victory. After this, the fundamentalist sect known as Boko Haram, which has killed no less than 935 persons in barely two years according to Human Rights Watch carried out is most deadly attacks on state institutions killing over 200 persons in the northern city of Kano, as it freed 100 of its incarcerated members. It is pertinent in reviewing this situation which Tell a leading liberal weekly in the country describes as “A Revolution Postponed”, to put in perspective the contradictions and convergence of crisis which the Nigerian society is now embroiled in and make projections about the turbulent road that lies ahea...

how great it was on Wednesday to get this lill' machine functioning once again since the early hours of January January 12! forward ever! backward never!!

The Federal Government declared war on Nigerians on New Year day, with its 120% hike in fuel price. With heads held high, the people gallantly rose across the country in stiff resistance, immediately. The resistance snowballed into a General Strike and series of escalating Mass Protests of historic proportions, with over ten million Nigerians demonstrating in more than 50 cities and towns within the country and no less than a dozen cities across Africa, Europe and the Americas. After nine days of this earth-shaking manifestation of the people’s power, in which over twenty citizens were brutally murdered by the police, particularly on the heels of four days of an indefinite General Strike, it seemed the state wanted peace and normalcy returned to the land as it summoned a meeting with organised labour and representatives of civil society. Alas, it only feigned concern for the people and the country. The meeting ended in a deadlock as the state refused to heed the legitimate demand of...

In the past few days, the Federal and state governments have tried to find a straw man to bear the responsibility for the turbulence they stirred, in ways and manners to break the collective of citizens rising against the system they represent and its insensitive policies such as “deregulation” & “removal of fuel subsidy”. The straw man’s other name is “vagabond”. Several top functionaries of the Federal Government have cried themselves hoarse that the streets have been seized by hoodlums. Mohammed Bello Adoke, the Attorney-General, has threatened to bring the full force of the law to bear on them for causing breakdown of law and order. Anyim Pius Anyim, Secretary to the Government of the Federation went a step further, demanding that organised labour condemns these “vandals”. In a number of states, including Kano, Kaduna, Edo & Oyo states, curfews ranging from dusk to dawn to 24 hours have been declared ostensibly to forestall further violence by these same hoodlums. Who...

We are alarmed at the fact that government is not intending either now or in the future to reduce the pump price of petrol. Whether government builds ten refineries in the nearest future and Nigeria’s refining capacity is increased beyond domestic demand, it is alarming that government is not intent on reducing the price of petrol, ostensibly because it wants prices to compete with neighbouring nations in order to avoid smuggling of the products across the borders. Instead of government initiating ways to man the borders and prosecuting fuel smugglers, government is intent on sustaining the hardship on Nigerians. This is terrible. This means that if those in neighbouring countries increase their pump prices beyond the present level, the Nigerian government will immediately increase the pump price of petrol again, in order to avoid smuggling. This is subversive, as government thinks only of economic value and not human value. If it makes economic sense to remove the subsidy, this sh...