Baba Aye's

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...

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...

“A tale of two September 21s” was what first came to my mind as a title for this article (and I still see it as an alternative title). I intended to trace out the similarities and differences in the significance of two events, which in different ways affected the two main components of the labor movement in Nigeria. First was September 21, 1974, when internment led to the unity of the trade union movement . Despite repression, infiltration, self-serving momentary splits, and attempts at state incorporation, the spirit of unity that emerged that day has remained alive. The second was September 21, 2005, when the death of a leading revolutionary socialist and civil society activist inspired efforts at uniting the socialist movement . After five years during which the initiative atrophied, it became clear that it had failed. It was, however, probably the longest-running attempt at establishing an alliance of the left. There are lessons to draw from this understudied period of our re...