Baba Aye's

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...

The living conditions of working-class people in Nigeria keep getting worse, while a handful of rich people keep getting richer. The situation has pushed us to the edge of existence. We cannot continue like this. The hardship we are facing is human made. It is the result of the policies that the government has put in place. Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared that “fuel subsidy is gone” the day he was sworn-in. Ever since then, fuel pump price, electricity tariffs, telecoms tariffs, prices of foodstuffs in the market and virtually of all commodities have all gone up. Our meagre salaries cannot buy anything substantial in the market. We struggle to send our children to school, and many have dropped out of school because parents can no longer afford the cost of tuition. Youth suicide is rising, driven by a spike in the number of students who die from suicide because neither they nor their parents can continue to bear the rising financial costs of their education. We are afraid to fall ill as we c...

Introduction Residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, woke up on Friday February 27, 2004 to see red, black and  green posters with the words "Labour Party (LP), WE HAVE ARRIVED" boldly inscribed on them. It was the eve of Saturday, February 28, 2004, the day that the inaugural convention of the now defunct Party for Social Democracy was billed to hold; the day that the LABOUR PARTY was born. The journey to February 28,2004 started some would say, a year and a half ago when the Party for Social Democracy was formed. Some others would say the journey started some six decades back, when the first Labour Party was formed. The pre-independence forays of Labour into electoral politics was very promising, but not long lasting. The dynamics of a "National Democratic Revolution" which the anti-colonial struggle was seen as, prevailed, seeing the dissolution of radical trade unionists into nationalist parties, particularly, the NCNC. Post-colonial Nigeria w...

The latest suicide bombings in Gwazo, in Borno State, caught security agents napping. What do you think about the incident? This development cannot, but fill one’s heart with sadness. My thoughts and sympathies go to the loved ones of the over 30 people killed in that synchronised suicide bomb­ings. The extensive use of women and girls to carry out suicide attacks over the years is a pointer to the heartlessness of the top hierarchy of Boko Haram strategy. Between 2014 and 2017, for example, they used over 200 females for this purpose. That is the highest number of the use of fe­male suicide bombers by any terror­ist group in the world. Some of them were earlier kidnapped and then coerced or brainwashed. That been said, it is also important to note that this recent development is a pointer to the point we have always made that it would be an illusion for the Nigerian government to think they can defeat insurgency in the North­east militarily. Without addressing the underlying cause o...

Since the Fourth Republic, the Leftists have been find­ing it difficult to ascend to political power in Nigeria. The late founder of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Chief Gani Fawehinmi and many of his followers tried several times. But, they could not win elections until the party was delisted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Several Leftist political parties which could not make much im­pression were also delisted when the INEC pruned the number of political parties to 18. Presently only the African Action Con­gress (AAC), formed by Omoyele Sowore, is standing as the major political platform of the Leftists. Gbenga Komolafe, a veteran ac­tivist and the General Secretary, Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations of Nigeria (FI­WON), who spoke to Sunday In­dependent, said the Progressive Left activists, politicians, parti­sans, and polemicists have been very loud about their critique of the neo-colonial order, now well entrenched and institutionali...