RESIST ANTI-POOR POLICIES AND ATTACKS ON DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS BY THE TINUBU GOVERNMENT

SUPPORT BUILDING OF A MASS WORKING PEOPLES’ PARTY ON A SOCIALIST PROGRAMME

2025 May Day Statement of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)

The Government of President Bola Tinubu is two years in office on May 29, 2025. For working people, youth and other ordinary Nigerians, the administration whose mantra is “Renewed Hope Agenda” has proved to be a monumental disaster. The so-called economic reforms which President Tinubu has implemented since he assumed office have only had devastating effects on living standards for the vast majority. Mass suffering and economic hardship have been the main feature of Nigeria in the last two years. Many more Nigerians have been thrown into poverty. Indeed, even the World Bank, a main promoter of the neo-liberal capitalist offensive which Tinubu government has unleashed, recently predicted that poverty in Nigeria will continue to increase until at least the end of 2027.

Since May 2023, prices of food, petrol, cooking gas and electricity have gone up astronomically. It is needless providing the details here; high prices of food and energy are excruciating daily experiences for every working people person and family. And they have had adversely multiplier effects on other goods and services. These include the cost of public health care and university education, in addition to the existing effect of the underfunding of the sectors.

Sadly, the national Labour leadership have refused to organize a serious struggle to resist the anti-poor policies of Tinubu government. They chose to fight only for minimum wage and so-called palliatives abysmally. Yet, it was possible to resist the policies and at the same time fight for a substantial raise in the minimum wage. They got the minimum wage to be increased to N70,000 in July 2024 but it was much lower in value than N30,000 when that was passed into law as the minimum wage in 2019. For instance, using data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), while N30,000 would buy about 120 pieces of 500g sliced bread in April 2019, N70,000 could only buy about 58 pieces in July 2024! This is as a result of inflation caused by the anti-poor policies which the Labour leadership refused to resist. For the same reason, the N70, 000 minimum wage has been further eroded in value in less than a year of coming into effect. This should be a lesson to workers and trade union activists. They should be prepared to mount pressure consistently on Labour leaders to always seriously fight to defend the interest of workers and begin agitation to remove any Labour leader who refuses.

Compounding the desperate situation of Nigerians is the resurgence in insurgence, violent attacks and mass killings in different parts of the country. Practically, there is more bad news every day. The increasing insecurity reflects the worsening socio-economic conditions as well as the failure of the government to tackle the underlying causes and also to protect lives and property.

Attacks on Democratic Rights

Indeed, the Tinubu government itself unleashes state violence on Nigerians in order to ride roughshod over them with its anti-poor policies. It attacks democratic rights including rights to free speech and peaceful protests. It uses an atrocious cyber law to criminalise criticism of the government and its top functionaries on social media. For instance, the ban to broadcast of Eedris Abdulkareem’s song “Tell Your Papa”, and arrest and persecution of activists show intolerance of dissent. Over 2000 persons including minors were incarcerated for over two months in police detention and prison in connection with #EndBadGovernance nationwide protest against mass hunger and economic hardship in August last year. Eleven #EndBadGovernance activists are still standing trial for trumped-up charges including treason, which carries a death penalty, because, according to the police charge sheet, they carried placards with inscription: “End Bad Government”!

Indeed, as further evidenced by the imposition of emergency rule in Rivers state, the descent to civilian dictatorship has become a feature of the Tinubu government. Working people and youth should reject the emergency rule. However, it should be stressed while working people must resist any action or measure that tends to further erode even the limited democratic rights which have been won, they must not have illusion in any capitalist politician or line behind any section of the capitalist ruling elite.

It is heartening that through #EndBadGovernance protests and other actions young people especially have made a bold statement that they are not prepared to surrender their democratic rights to the emerging dictatorial government of Tinubu.

Independent Mass Action outside Official Labour Leadership

It is only the organized labour which has not seriously entered the arena of struggle against the Tinubu government. Workers are prepared to struggle, especially if they see that their leaders are serious; it is the Labour leadership who have applied brake. Yet, without a mass struggle by the working-class organization that unites the people regardless of ethnic and religious background, there is a great danger that the currently growing anger will produce an explosion of anger not only against the ruling elite but also amongst working people and the poor as they struggle to survive.

Therefore, workers and trade union activists must mount pressure on the Labour leaders to take on the responsibility of building a movement which fights against the anti-poor policies, attacks on democratic rights, anti-labour practices (casualization, outsourced contract staffing etc.) and the real enemies of the Nigerian masses. But clearly the present Labour leadership are unwilling to do that. In this situation, we call on working people, youth, pro-masses organisations and individual trade unions to take on the initiative of organising such a movement, independent of the official leadership of NLC and TUC. However, if such a movement pushes the NLC and TUC to become involved in a struggle, then resistance must be prepared from below to counter the rotten compromises that we have seen in the past.

Political Alternative

Also importantly, given the experience of the 2023 general election where all the major presidential candidates basically advocated the same anti-poor, neo-liberal policies which largely account for the current devastation of the living standards, the movement must also build a mass working peoples’ party on a socialist programme to contest for power. However, if the leadership of the NLC is serious about their claim of wanting to reclaim the Labour Party and reposition it as a genuine working peoples’ party, we urge them to convene a special conference of the trade unions, socialists and left organisations. This is with a view of discussing or agreeing on programme as well as organizational and political methods needed to achieve it. For us in the DSM, working people and the poor need their own corruption-free and democratically run mass party to wrest political power from all the sections of the capitalist ruling elite. This is in order to form a government which on the basis of democratic socialist planning is able to mobilise adequate resources and use them for the benefit of the vast majority.

We call on working class people and youth to support and fight for the following:

• Reversal of anti-poor neo-liberal policies

• An end to casualization, outsourced contract staffing and other precarious work policies

• Full implementation of the N70,000 minimum wage without retrenchment and for the NLC and TUC to begin agitation for an increase to meet the rate of inflation

• Reversal of recent hikes in school fees at tertiary institutions. Adequate funding and democratic management of public education and healthcare at all levels

• Reversal of electricity tariff and return of power sector to the public ownership under democratic control of workers and consumers

• Immediate cut in salaries and allowances of political office holders and other top government functionaries to the salary structure of civil servants

• An end to attacks on democratic rights. Freedom for those in detention because of protests. Drop charges against of Michael Lenin and other 10 #EndBadGovernance activists as well as other victims of sham trials

• Immediate fixing of public refineries and building of new ones. Democratic control of public refineries

• A price-cap on all products from Dangote and other refineries

• Multi-ethnic and multi–religious democratic defence committees under democratic control of community people to deal with insecurity including disarming the various armed criminal gangs

• Nationalisation of commanding heights of economy under democratic control of working people in order to ensure the economy works for need of all, not the greed of a few

• For the building of a mass working people’s party on a socialist programme

Join with the DSM in campaigning for this programme and concrete action to defend working people and the poor

Peluola Adewale

Organising Secretary

For Democratic Socialist Movement