Baba Aye's

The National Chairman Labour Party (LP) LP National Office Ladoke Akintola Boulevard Garki II Dear Chairman, IN DEFENCE OF THE 3 RD LP CONVENTION HOLDING BY OR BEFORE DECEMBER 19, AND AGAINST A THIRD TERM BID By December 19, 2013, it will be four years since the 2 nd Convention of our Party was held at the Labour House, Abuja, where you were returned to run for a second term of office as the National Chairman, haven been elected into the office on February 28, 2004, at the 1 st LP Convention which held at the National Women Centre, Abuja. At this juncture, all well-meaning party members, and supporters are looking forward to the convocation of the 3 rd LP Convention and you handing over as National Chairman after spending almost a decade in that highly exalted office. I am constrained to have to point out the obvious, due to some unclear signals that you just might be interested in self-perpetuation as the party chairman: such a step would not augur well f...

INTRODUCTION The world has been in severe turmoil now for six years. Staring as a “financial crisis”, the global economy entered into a “Great Recession”, the likes of which has never been witnessed since the “Great Depression” of the 1930s, in 2008-2009. While the world economy has come out of that recession, we now witness what has been described as the “Great Stagnation” [1] with an economic crisis that has thrown hundreds of millions of persons into the abyss of unemployment and rendered millions homeless. The global economic crisis has impacted on different countries in different ways and to different extents, depending on the way and manner they are integrated into the world economy. But hardly any country can claim to be aloof from its adverse consequences, as “globalisation” intertwines the fates of peoples from the farthest reach of into one broad mosaic of a community of fate. This does not mean that everyone in the multiplicity of countries and regions of the world ...

INTRODUCTION The Federal Government of Nigeria initiated what it describes as a “transformation agenda” when President Goodluck Jonathan took up the reins of office after the 2011 elections. It would seem that the Jonathan administration was keying into the frustrations of Nigerians with the worsening social-economic conditions of the immense majority of the population and the perennial state of instability of the nation. But essentially, despite feverish claims to the contrary, little if anything has changed. Nigeria still relies majorly on the exploitation of crude oil for its revenue (with probably more of such revenue entering private pockets than the collective coffers), unemployment is on the increase, poverty, and disillusionment stalk the land, along with violence ethno-regional conflicts, particularly in the north eastern region. The country has had considerable growth despite the storm of the global economic crisis. This has led the elite to attempts at sowing the ill...

Jagunmolu Baba Oluwide Omojola I can hardly describe the shock when I learnt of Baba Oluwide’s death, a few hours back. He was undoubtedly one of the most passionate and committed revolutionary that I ever met. Better known as Baba Omojola, he was one for who struggle for and with the working people was indeed life as a whole itself. Barely two months ago his 75 th birthday (and 60 th year as a revolutionary) was celebrated by comrades at The Yard in Ikeja. I delayed my journey to Benin Republic that day, as I could not imagine missing the programme, to arrive at Cotonu very late in the night, to Baba’s delight. It was my intention to write a tribute which would also engage with the paper presented by Dr Onyekpere at the programme that espoused a developmentalist state pathway to socialist transformation. But alas, with so many items to engage with and the practical work of organising, I had to put this aside. I would not have imagined that less than two months later Jagunm...

AFRICAN MARXISM DAY 2013 October 12, 2013 @Khanya College hosted by Keep Left, SA Time Session VENUE Theme Speakers 9.30am-11.30am Opening Rally Main Hall (2 nd Floor) An Era of Crises and Revolts Baba Aye (Nigeria) and Munya Gwisai (Zimbabwe) 11.45am-1.15pm BREAKAWAY SESSIONS Main Hall The Arc of National Liberation Movements; from Sankara to the ANC and beyond Mondli Hlatswayo (RSA) 7 th Floor Theatre Black Liberation Thinkers “What matters is...to change the world”; Frantz Fanon’s relevance to class struggle Mosa (SA) 1 st Floor Egypt 2013: What have we learned about the process of Revolution since Russia 1917? Claire Ceruti (SA) 1.15pm-2.00pm LUNCH BREAK BREAKAWAY SESSIONS Main Hall Lenin: the State, Revolution and Organi...