End Hunger Protest: Workers Trooped out to protest against hardship and hunger

The Revolutionary Socialist Movement Joined thousands of Workers Nationwide who trooped out to on March 26 & 27 to demand an end to Hunger in Nigeria

NLC and TUC must call a 48 hours’ general strike to force the government to stop all anti poor policies and to fight for an improved standard of living.

By RSM reporter

Nigerians have witnessed a 29 per cent increase in the inflation rate over the past few months. The prices of food items, domestic needs, transport, cement and building materials, and other basic goods have skyrocketed by 50% between December 2023 and February 2024. The Nigerian currency – The Naira – has also fallen helplessly and lost its value significantly in the foreign exchange market from an average of N700/$1 to N1,800/$1 within the same range of months.

Nigeria’s economic crisis has increased and has gone from bad to worse. More people have fallen into poverty while the few surviving working and ordinary people are living with uncertainty as to when the crisis will end. Disjointed mass protests have also broken out across different parts of the country the focus of these protests is singular; the increasing cost of living in the country. At least, not less than five states of the country – Niger, Kano, Oyo, Lagos, Abuja, etc. – have recorded mass protests by the ordinary people on February 2-0254 alone.

Even the ruling elites are clueless about what to do and how to salvage the self-imposed hardship they initially caused. The unilateral decision of the new president, Bola Tinubu, to remove fuel subsidies and float the Naira has plunged Nigeria into irredeemable economic turmoil.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) have remained silent. At least, these two union centres have declared more than 3 strike and protest actions in the past 8 months of Tinubu’s administration.

During the last NEC meeting of the NLC held on Friday 16th of February, 2024, the NLC decided to embark on a 2-day mass protest to call the attention of the government to mass hunger and poverty ravaging the country due to the economic policy of the government by removing subsidy on petrol and floating of the Nigerian Naira.

The federal government attempted to stop the protest with cheap propaganda of possible hijack, ploy of political opponents, and security threats. For instance, a handful of sponsored pro-Tinubu protesters organised a pro-government rally before, during, and after the protest called by NLC. Similarly, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and the Department of State Services (DSS) initially threatened to stop  protest but the steadfastness and unity of the protesters were enough to keep the state-sponsored riffle-men at bay.  Even the Nigerian Police later made a U-turn and announced her commitment to protect the protesters instead.

Before the 2-day protest called by the NLC (27th and 28th), our organization, the Revolutionary Socialist Movement (RSM), and a few other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) commenced a nationwide protest on Monday 26th. Part of the protest’s aims was to create awareness in the people, mobilize the rank of the citizens, and show that protests can occur with or without the labour front.

On Tuesday 27th, about 5000 workers and civil society members started gathering at the NLC national secretariat Abuja at around 6 am, chanting solidarity songs, and exchanging political materials. During the protest, comrades of the RSM shared about 1000 copies of our RSM leaflet and those of the Joint Action Front (JAF) – a broad struggle platform. Our key demands included, but were not limited to the nationalisation of all the key sectors, a 200,000 minimum wage and living wage, reversal of all the hiked school fees, a halt to corruption in subsidy and not subsidy itself and so on.

Other protesters carried placards with different inscriptions, which projected the collective grievances of the people and a call for an urgent remedy to the nation’s economic woes. Some of the placards bore inscriptions such as #End Poverty and Hunger, #Support Local Industries, #Tax the rich, subsidise the poor, and #End Naira Devaluation.

Protest was led by the NLC President Joe Ajaero, other labour leaders, and civil society groups. The protesters left the Labour House and marched towards the Eagle’s Square and arrived at the gate of the National Assembly in the Three Arms Zone.

Some of the affiliates of the NLC that participated in the protest include the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and Construction Workers’ Union. The protest also witnessed the participation of the newly registered union in the informal sectors, the Motorcycle Operators Union of Nigeria (MOUN) with about 50 of their members riding on their motorcycles for about ten kilometres in convoy to join the protest.  These motorcycles were at the front of the struggle and displayed their different placards.

The hungry and angry protesters were shouting and chanting. One of the popular chants was “we are hungry, a bag of sachet water is now six hundred naira (from N250) which means that to even drink water now in a country where the minimum wage is 30,000 is a problem. Water is now a luxury!” The anger is also written on the faces of the passers-by and onlookers who are seen giving thumbs up to the protesters.

There is another aspect of the protest where the police are seen behaving very friendly with the protesters. Even some of them requested copies of the leaflets and extended forms of appreciative gestures.

As usual, the National Assembly leadership sent some representatives to welcome the protesters. The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labour, Employment and Productivity, Diket Plang, was one of the NASS representatives that received the letter on behalf of the house and he claimed they are with Nigerians in this hard time and are also very sensitive to the situation. According to him, “We are supposed to stand in for Nigerians where it pinches them. I want to assure you that the National Assembly is very sensitive to what is happening.”  He also talked about the minimum wage that the negotiations are ongoing.  The interesting thing about his speech is that he didn’t mention the bogus amount they earn as senators and the luxurious cars of 160 millionaires bought for each Senator and House of Representatives member.

After the protest on the 27th, the NLC decided to shelve the protest slated for the second day on the notion that “the objectives of the protest have been achieved already.” The NLC further added a 7-day ultimatum to the existing 7 days given originally (making 14 days) for the government to find a lasting solution to the gross hunger and economic hardship in the country. The NLC threatened a general, total, and comprehensive strike if nothing changed after the 14-day grace period.

The Divided Labour Movement

Meanwhile, there was a form of division within the labour movement before the protest. The Trade Union Congress didn’t join the protest because there was no uniform agreement between the two labour fronts before the protest was declared. According to the Deputy President of TUC, Mr Tommy Eti, “the protest called by NLC will lead to anarchy and the best way to approach the crisis is diplomacy.”  Also, the national leadership of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria organised a press conference to give another Ultimatum to the Federal Government and said they’re not part of the protest.

Going Forward

The ongoing economic and security crisis in Nigeria requires mass action to force the government to stop anti-poor policies.  The crises are created by its policies and not the working class and poor that should pay for it.  The Tinubu government isn’t interested in solving the Nigeria crisis. The Labour and Civil Society must also pay attention to reckless state governors who have refused to pay their workers arrears of salary and backlog of pensions. The corruption and impunity of the governors need resistance from labour and civil society.

The labour leaders have two options; either to build resistance with ordinary people such as market men and women, people from the informal sector and youth and Student movement against the Tinubu government and force him to implement pro-people policies or the Labour movement itself should start the building of mass workers political alternative premised on socialist ideas. The latter could be an attempt to reclaim the Labour Party from the bourgeois elements that utilize the party for business purposes. In any of these alternatives, we of the RSM are ready to support, mobilize, and canvass for the success of the processes.

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