CHILDREN’S DAY: CHILDREN LANGUISHING IN DEN OF TERRORISTS SHOWS FAILURE OF TINUBU AND THE ENTIRE RULING CLASS

THE NLC AND TUC MUST DECLARE NATIONWIDE STRIKE AND MASS PROTEST!

This year’s Children’s Day will be a gory day for thousands of children and other Nigerians, especially for the children and teachers who are presently languishing in the den of terrorists. On the 15th of May, 2026, terrorists carried out attacks on a high school and two primary schools in the Ahoro-Esinele and Yawota communities of Oriire Local Government Area, which is close to Ogbomosho in Oyo State. From the report, 39 students, mostly of tender ages where kidnapped together with 7 teachers. Tragically, one of the teachers, Mr Michael Oyedokun, was beheaded by the bandits in captivity. Earlier, a teacher was killed during the attacks on the schools.

Despite this, the Tinubu government and the Seyi Makinde administration in Oyo state have not been able to come up with any solution. In fact, they all have their attention fixed on the 2027 general elections, while innocent children are subject to horrible conditions, and millions of others live in fear.

Ordinarily, for many children of the working masses, the reality is already agonising. This is because the Tinubu government, through its anti-people and neoliberal policies, has successfully made life more unbearable and difficult for the working masses. The consequences of the economic hardship created by the pro-capitalist policies of the Tinubu government weigh heavily on many working-class families and their children.

The World Bank, in a report in October 2025, estimates “that 139 million Nigerians live in poverty”. This indicates a sharp increase from 104 million people in 2023. According to a report by the Red Cross, about 6.4 million children could become acutely malnourished. According to reports, Nigeria has the second-highest number of stunted children in the world, with about 32% of Nigerian children under five being stunted, and around 2 million Nigerian children suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). According to the WHO, in 2023, Nigeria accounted for 39% of global malaria deaths among children under five years.

From all angles, the Tinubu government and the entire ruling class have made life extremely difficult for millions of children who now bear this through hunger, malnutrition, lack of access to education, disease and death. No child should live under these atrocious and abysmal conditions.

Like an insult added to injury, children now live in fear of being kidnapped. Today, some of the kidnapped Chibok students are still languishing in the Boko Haram den after 12 years!

Collectively, the capitalist ruling class has shown it is incapable of resolving the crisis of insecurity. Of course, victims of insecurity are usually members of the working masses, which explains the attitude the government has shown to insecurity over the years. In fact, it has become a conduit pipe to syphon public funds.

For instance, all of the state governors get security votes to the tune of several billions every year. These funds are usually unaccounted for and lavished away. Also, the Safe school initiative which as gulped billions since 2014 has failed to keep the school safe.

The Education Rights Campaign (ERC) calls for a united struggle of the working masses against insecurity and hardship. We call on the NLC and TUC to go beyond mere condemnation of insecurity and come up with a series of mass actions including declaring a nationwide strike and mass protest against the Tinubu government and how it has endangered the lives of the working masses. A united action of the working people is needed to ensure that the working and poor people are not divided along religious or ethnic lines.

We demand the formation of a pan-Nigeria and multi-ethnic defence to work democratically with security operatives to help safeguard schools and communities. Importantly, it is the failure of governance over the years that has created a fertile ground for insecurity to thrive. Many of the affected communities are communities that are underdeveloped and mostly have no touch of governance, where citizens are clearly disconnected from governance.

For instance, the most affected region, the North, is the region with the highest number of impoverished citizens and out-of-school children. According to a report, at least 652 children died from malnutrition in Katsina State within six months in 2025. The conditions are not so different in many other northern states and other parts of the country. These primordial and poverty conditions have provided fertile ground for insecurity to thrive. In fact, criminal groups now freely recruit children and youths into their ranks. Many eyewitnesses of the recent kidnapping of children confessed that children, between the ages of 10 and 15, were among the attackers who carried out the vicious attack.

For us, insecurity cannot be fought with only arms. There is a need to fight underdevelopment, poverty, unemployment, underfunding of public education and healthcare. Clearly, from the experience this fight cannot be seriously waged by the Nigerian thieving and primitive ruling class. Since 1960, they have shown it is incapable of ending poverty and hardship in Nigeria.

Therefore, while the working people and youth must continue initiate struggle as it can force the government to grant some concessions, it should be realised that only a government of the working people and youth, on a socialist programme, that can seriously begin to carry out the task of genuinely developing Nigeria and ending poverty and economic hardship. This means a government that emerged from the struggle of the working masses and places the commanding heights of the economy under the democratic control and management of the working people, and public resources are used in the interest of the working class.

This is why the ERC, in addition to campaigning for adequate funding of public education and respect for democratic rights, calls for a united struggle of the working people and youth to put an end to the vicious reign of capitalism and enthrone socialism

Ogunjinmi Isaac,

Deputy National Coordinator

Adaramoye Michael Lenin,

National Mobilisation Officer.

ERC email [email protected]