Posts

Fieyi @18

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I'd always wanted to be there for when our children would come. However, I was faraway at Maiduguri for the MHWUN delegates conference when the first came (his first nickname -from a delegate- before he formally had a name was Conferencius). So, to say I was delighted at being there on 13 March 2006 would be a great understatement. For the first time, I shared that journey (that's actually an overstatement, no man can truly share that journey, which deepened my respect for women: I told my wife thereafter that if I were a woman, I would not make that journey twice) and the baby was a girl! I'd always loved and wanted to have daughters (happily for me, she is the first of three lovely girls in this Lion's Pride, not counting the lead woman: our General Secretary). Over the years, she has grown to be one of my best friends & a co-conspirator. A fervent feminist, she argues that bride price is a patriarchal practice, each time I jokingly say she and her sisters' do

Nigerians Should Expect More Mass Protests – Baba Aye*

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You are a Co-Convener of the Coalition for Revolution (CORE) that organised peaceful protests across the country for a revolution that was expected to usher in a positive change in the lives of Nigerians. What is the state of CORE and the other affiliates now? The series of peaceful protests you are talking about comprise the #RevolutionNow campaign, which was launched on 5 August 2019 with a nationwide #DayOfRage protest. The campaign helped to catalyse the reawakening of a spirit of revolt against the oppressive rule of the APC in particular and the exploiter ruling class and their repressive apparatus in general. It contributed significantly to igniting the #EndSARS rebellion in October 2020. A lot has happened since, with both the coalition and its affiliates. CORE unfurled the campaign in the wake of a resolution adopted by the African Action Congress (AAC). The Take It Back movement of the AAC, as you know, was a member-organisation of CORE. In fact, it was one of the two blo

Lola: NLC's birthday mate

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Today is yet another day on the calendar with both personal and political significance to me. On this day 20 years ago, the Labour Party (LP) held its Founding Convention, with great hope which I captured in my article for the Labour Factsheet titled “We Have Arrived.” I was elected into the party’s leadership for the first time, with resounding applause. I remember a supposed journalist from a fake newspaper coming up to me to ask a question (I was quite sure he was SSS). His question was why did I get clearly the loudest ovation of those elected even though I emerged as National Auditor, a position that would be considered the least weighty on the NWC? My response was straightforward, I’d spent the better part of my 33 years at the time in selfless service to the working class first as a student activist across three campuses for almost a decade and then for five years as a full-time trade unionist, including as NLC Lagos State Chair (Caretaker Committee) at a crucial point in

Two Poems for a Doubly Special Day

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Sixteen years ago, I was about leaving Gombe, where I had helped run an IUF education programme for its affiliate, the Agricultural and Allied Workers Union of Nigeria (AAWUN) when I got a phone call that my wife was in the labour ward to deliver our third child. By the time I got to Abuja, the bundle of joy was already in her mum's arms, kicking and crying with such energy.  It was one of those moments when the heart gets congealed with emotions that can be fully grasped with fatherhood. But there was an additional feeling that swept over me. And it came from the thought that I could very well have died sixteen earlier on that same date, and never had the privilege and pleasure of fathering her and her siblings.  That moment in 1992 was a political one. It was the day CAFCA took its last stand at the University of Ilorin. It was a day I almost died whilst saving a building torched by the anti-riot police's teargas from burning and almost lost my life in the process. We were ev

"Liberation Day" - How Union Rights Were Reinstated at FCE(T) Akoka 30 Years Ago

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Students of the Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka declared 18 February as Liberation Day, forty years ago. On that day, the autocratic Provost of the school, Dr Auta was humbled and made to reinstate the students union which he had banned five years earlier in the wake of the Great Anti-SAP Revolt. Four student leaders from the University of Lagos, Akoka came to invite him to the university campus close by, at the behest of the FCE(T) students: Omoyele "Sho" Sowore, Tope "Authority" Ajeigbe, Lanre & yours truly.  But the journey to that day started five months earlier with the resistance of 17 students at the college on teaching practice. These students, who included Tayo Aderinola, were denied their Teaching Practice allowance, even though this was budgeted for. And they asked questions.  Auta's response was to suspend them. But they would not simply give up. They formed a group called G17 with the help of Gbenga Fakoya, a former student and me

"More Mass Protests May Take Place Soon"*

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With increase in kidnapping and other crimes, the Afenifere leaders have just suggested a multi-level policing in the country. To what extent do you agree with the Afenifere leaders? Do you see this yielding meaningful results considering the existing Police structure? Kidnapping has become a major industry of what you can describe as the insecurity sector of the national economy. You might want to recall that in the first half of 2021 alone, over N10 billion which amounted to $19.96 million at the time, was recorded as ransoms paid to free over 2,000 kidnapped people. This did not stop the deaths of about 10 percent of these victims. We thought things were bad at that time. But compared to now, that was child’s play. This nefarious industry now has different scales, large-scale, medium scale, small scale and even micro. You tend to hear of those big women and men or increasingly so middle-class people that are kidnapped. But even welders, cobblers, barbers and other poor artisans