Baba Aye's

The 9th National Administrative Committee (NAC) of the United Action for Democracy (UAD) mourns the passing of our comrade, mentor, and revolutionary leader, Comrade Abiodun “Aremson” Aremu: a tireless fighter for justice, people’s power, and human liberation. Comrade Aremson’s life was wholly devoted to the struggle for a free, democratic, and socially just Nigeria. His sudden death in a hit-and-run incident on Sunday, 12 October 2025, in Ota, Ogun State, has left a painful void in the ranks of the labour, pro-democracy, and civil society movements, both within and beyond Nigeria. As a former Convener of the UAD, Comrade Aremu embodied the values of courage, clarity, and commitment. From the days of the Campaign for Democracy (CD) through the struggles of the Joint Action Front (JAF) and the Labour–Civil Society Coalition (LASCO), he stood firm on the side of the oppressed, never compromising on principles. Through his leadership in the Amílcar Cabral Ideological School (ACIS-M)...

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...

“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...

Today makes it twenty-one years since Comrade Ola Oni passed on. He was one of the greatest leaders and teachers on the Nigerian Left, from the '60s till his death. He, along with Eskor Toyo, Baba Omojola and others split from the Socialist Workers and Farmers Party in Augsut 1964 (i.e., a year and four months after SWAFP was formed) to form the Nigeria Labour Party under the leadership of Michael Imoudu (Labour Leader #1). Both SWAFP and the NLP would be smashed by the military juntas (first of General Aguinyi Ironsi's for just 6 months but more so by General Yakubu Gowon's which lasted 9 years), as all partisan formations were repressed. But the tendency they had formed would continue in different forms (as well as SWAFP's till the early '90s) till the early 2000s. With elections on the horizons for the establishment of a Second Republic in 1979, a series of two All-Nigeria Socialist Conferences were organised in 1977 and 1978, with the primary aim of formin...

…as the “Lenin of Africa” dies at 86 [1] Prof Eskor Toyo, fondly called “the Lenin of Africa” by his close associates, died at 7.30pm on December 7, aged 86 years. He had been bedridden for over two years, after a series of strokes. Before ill health made it impossible for his powerful brain and limbs to work, he was one of the most brilliant and committed revolutionaries on the Nigerian Left. Named Asuquo Ita at birth in 1929, at Oron, within the present day Akwa Ibom, Eskor (a “guy name” for Asuquo) became an activist in his teens, inspired by the radical Zikist National Vanguard, in the 1940s. He became one of the first set of Marxists in the country by the late 1940s and mobilised solidarity for the families of coal miners killed at Iva Valley on November 18, 1949, on the platform of the National Emergency Committee constituted in the wake of the massacre. He was equally at the barricades during the 1950 strike of the Amalgamated Union of UAC African Workers’ ...