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...

You are a Co-Convener of the Coalition for Revolution (CORE) that organised peaceful protests across the country for a revolution that was expected to usher in a positive change in the lives of Nigerians. What is the state of CORE and the other affiliates now? The series of peaceful protests you are talking about comprise the #RevolutionNow campaign, which was launched on 5 August 2019 with a nationwide #DayOfRage protest. The campaign helped to catalyse the reawakening of a spirit of revolt against the oppressive rule of the APC in particular and the exploiter ruling class and their repressive apparatus in general. It contributed significantly to igniting the #EndSARS rebellion in October 2020. A lot has happened since, with both the coalition and its affiliates. CORE unfurled the campaign in the wake of a resolution adopted by the African Action Congress (AAC). The Take It Back movement of the AAC, as you know, was a member-organisation of CORE. In fact, it was one of the two blo...

First, I wish to commend Social Action and AFRICMIL for initiating the annual “pro-democracy conference” series. I do believe, like many activists, that these conferences provide us opportunity to reflect on our collective past (in the struggle against military dictatorship) and present, towards enriching our perspectives on what is to be done, towards conquering the battle for democracy. It has thus within just a few years become probably the most important vehicle for inter-generational discourse on past, present and future of pro-democratic struggles in Nigeria. Such reflections which the discourse entails for us to draw lessons from our past and formulate ideas for our future battles, does naturally involve debates. And debates, particularly on our recent history would of course encompass (different) interpretations of what and what transpired and the significance of these. The 1 st conference which was held in 2018 was, I gathered, one which involved heated debates on what tra...