Nigerian government forced to drop treason charges that carry the death penalty against 119 protesters struggling to make ends meet

On November 5, Nigeria’s Federal High Court in the capital Abuja dismissed charges against 119 protesters arrested for participating in mass demonstrations against austerity in August. Protesters have been charged with treason, a felony, and sedition, and face possible death sentences if convicted. Nearly 30 of the protesters charged were minors, some as young as 14 years old.

The young protesters had been detained and held in adult prisons for nearly three months since their arrest in August, according to Nigerian activist groups. After months of detention in squalid conditions, they were so malnourished and emaciated that at least four of the children who appeared in court on November 1 fell ill and had to be taken from the courtroom for emergency medical attention.

People protest economic hardship on the street in Lagos, Nigeria, August 2, 2024 (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

Videos of children writhing in pain on the courtroom floor have gone viral in Nigeria, sparking widespread outrage and calls on social media for the children’s immediate release. Nigerian human rights organization Enough is Enough described the imprisonment and treason charges against minors as “institutional child abuse”, while Amnesty International said: “Subjecting children to these horrific detentions for taking part in protests against hunger and corruption is the worst crime ever.” “one of the most deadly attempts to suppress freedom of assembly.”

Under mounting public pressure in Nigeria and internationally, President Bola Tinubu was forced into a tactical retreat, ordering the release of underage protesters on November 4, and the Federal High Court dismissed the charges against the remaining 90 adult protesters the next day.

According to the Minister of Information, Mohammed Idris, Tinubu called for an investigation into the security operatives involved in the arrest and detention of the children and directed the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to assist in the rehabilitation of the children. In a cynical effort to quell public anger, Vice President Kashim Shettima received the 119 released protesters at the presidential villa in Abuja on Tuesday (5) and then handed them over to the respective state governors for repatriation.

Despite the release of the protesters, the Nigerian government has made clear that this does not mean a retreat from its relentless attack on the working class. At Tuesday’s reception, Shettima stated that the prisoners were released solely on humanitarian grounds “despite undeniable digital video and photographic evidence (of criminal acts).”

Thousands of protesters, mostly young people, took to the streets across Nigeria during the 10-day demonstrations held between 1-10 August under the slogans #No MoreHunger and #NoMoreBadGovernance in Nigeria. They faced brutal police repression; More than 1,000 people were arrested, at least 22 were killed by security forces, and many more were attacked with tear gas.

The demonstrations, the fifth major protest against Tinubu since he came to power last year, were held to protest the rising cost of living, high unemployment and widespread government corruption. Tinubu was appointed president in May 2023, following an election marred by violence, fraud and other irregularities, with voter turnout at 27 percent, the lowest in Nigerian history.

Tinubu introduced a number of pro-market policies, including floating the Nigerian naira, previously pegged to the US dollar, and ending decades of fuel subsidies in exchange for World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. This led to a rapid doubling in the price of oil, which many Nigerians use to generate electricity for their homes. Since then, Nigeria’s currency has lost nearly 70 percent of its value, pushing inflation to a 28-year high and sparking a crushing cost of living crisis.

What makes the government’s crisis worse is that oil production is much lower than expected from the 1.78 million barrels assumed in the 2024 federal budget. While Nigeria’s oil production accounts for just over 5 percent of the country’s GDP, it accounts for more than 70 percent of government revenues, leading to a higher-than-expected budget deficit of 7 percent. This, combined with Nigeria’s high cost of debt servicing (a whopping 74 percent of the federal budget for the first half of 2024), means that the IMF is unlikely to see this ratio fall below 70 percent before 2026, and this situation lies behind his predictions that it will only happen temporarily. At the same time, Nigeria is expected to receive more loans.

Food inflation decreased from its highest level of 40.87 percent in June to 37.8 percent in September. Overall inflation rates fell from 34 percent in early summer to 32.7 percent in September; This rate was the highest since 1996. Approximately 40 percent of Nigeria’s population, an estimated 87 million people, live in extreme poverty on less than $2.15 a year. day.

The Nigerian economy has been hit by internal shocks such as the devastating floods of October 2022 and September 2024, as well as crises such as rising global food and fertilizer prices and the COVID-19 pandemic following Russia’s NATO-provoked invasion of Ukraine. Ethnic and Religious conflicts are disrupting agriculture, interfering with supply chains and leading to food shortages across the country, especially in Northern Nigeria where the bulk of food production occurs.

All of this has led to extreme food insecurity among Nigeria’s population of 220 million; It is estimated by the International Monetary Fund that 18 million people are food insecure. The United Nations gave the country the second-highest rating, calling it one of “hotspots of very high concern” for hunger. Only Palestine, Sudan, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali rank worse; all have been devastated by civil war, violent political instability, or, in the case of Palestine, suffered imperialist-backed genocide. A report released this week by the UN World Food Program predicts that 33 million people in Nigeria will experience acute food insecurity by 2025, with the number facing urgent levels of need nearly doubling.

The cost of living protests in August followed a general strike in June demanding an increase in Nigeria’s poverty line minimum wage. Workers began an indefinite strike on June 3, shutting down airports and the national grid and severely affecting banks, hospitals and schools.

The Nigerian Labor Congress (NLC) had first called for a new minimum wage of N615,000 ($370) in May, stating: “Anything below this amount would be a starvation wage and condemn Nigerian workers and their families to permanent poverty.” Before reducing the demand to N494,000 ($290).

However, two days after the start of the “indefinite strike” in June, the NLC called off the strike under the false claim that the government was considering increasing the minimum wage to N250,000. The Tinubu regime eventually agreed to raise the minimum wage from N30,000 ($18) to N70,000 ($43) per month in July to prevent demonstrations planned for August; this was a tiny fraction of the figure claimed by the union bureaucracy. to fight for.

Another round of cost-of-living demonstrations took place on October 1, coinciding with local elections and Nigeria’s Independence Day celebrations, as well as the 64th anniversary since the end of British colonial rule in 1960. Five organizers were arrested in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest demonstration centre. Police used tear gas to disperse crowds in Abuja and Port Harcourt. Protests took place in Lagos, Ibadan and various towns and cities in Nigeria.

Strikes and protests show that the Nigerian working class has no shortage of will to fight. Nigeria is not unique in this regard. Mass protests and strikes, mainly led by youth, have been held in dozens of African countries, including Kenya and Uganda, against austerity, police brutality and corruption.

However, very important lessons need to be learned from this. The ruling class is incapable of solving any of the fundamental economic and social problems facing the working class and rural poor in Nigeria or on the African continent. This confirms Leon Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, which explains that in the age of imperialism, the struggle for the social and democratic rights of workers and the oppressed masses in former colonial countries can only be carried out by the working class in the struggle for political rights. strength.

Today, this means uniting the working class and rural poor across race, ethnicity, gender lines and national borders. This requires the construction of independent working class struggle organizations imbued with a socialist perspective, separate from and hostile to the parties and trade union bureaucracies of the national bourgeoisie. First of all, this means establishing branches of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Nigeria, Africa and around the world.

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