Baba Aye's

The "June 12 struggle" was an interesting period in Nigeria's history. The story of the struggle goes beyond the election that was annulled and its custodian. And the story of the election and the roles different personages and organisations played in the high drama starts well before the six-year democratic revolution unfurled with the annulment.  I've written a bit about this important, somewhat tragic, somewhat farcical, but none the less definitive moment in Nigeria's history. One of the two articles one might be interested in looking up are " Nigeria: the six year revolution " which which was first published in 2008 in the Working People's Vanguard and again in 2015 in the Socialist Worker . The other is " The shadow of June 12 : June 12, the left and Nigeria's democratic revolution", which was published in the Republic in 2022 and which has been republished in its latest special print issue "Nigeria Imaginary", marking t...

Could you give a brief assessment of the one year of President Bola Tinubu administration ? Tinubu himself gave the clearest perspective for appraising his administration at the so-called G20 compact with Africa economic conference in Berlin last November. Addressing German investors at conference, he boasted that he deserves the Guinness World Records recognition for neoliberal reforms.  Tinubu has been the most effective presidential tool of the capitalist class and imperialism in Nigeria’s history. That is why the IMF and rating agencies like Standard and Poor’s have showered him with praises. Under Tinubu’s watch, big capitalists and multinational corporations have been able to extend their capacity to exploit the working people and natural resources. Tinubu and his cronies are of course beneficiaries as well, as you can see with the award of the Lagos-Calabar superhighway contract. But poor working people and the already squeezed middle class have been the worse off. The r...