But Struggle Continues to drop all charges and free all jailed #EndBadGovernance activists
On Wednesday September 11, Adaramoye Michael Lenin and nine others were granted bail by a Federal High Court at the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. The bail came with stringent conditions which include a surety each with 10 million naira bond and landed property in Abuja. They have been also barred from participating in any public rally or protests throughout their trial. Nonetheless, it is a relief that, once the bail conditions are met, they would regain freedom after over five weeks in incarceration. Michael Lenin, National Coordinator of Youth Rights Campaign (YRC), was arrested together with Mosiu Sodiq in the wee hours of August 5 by the security operatives on the order of National Security Adviser to President Bola Tinubu.
It is also important to note that it is a strident campaign and solidarity actions, held both locally and internationally by different organisations including sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), that forced the court to grant the bail and the government not to indicate a plan to appeal it. Therefore, the campaign must be sustained with demands for dropping of treason and other trumped-up charges preferred against Michael Lenin and others, and an immediate release of the thousands of others who are still being unjustly detained in different police custodies and prisons nationwide especially in the Northern parts of the country. These include Daniel Akande who has been held at the Police’s Intelligence Rapid Team (IRT) Abuja without trial since September 2. There are also 39 protesters who have been dumped at Kuje prison Abuja through an unlawful 60-day remand order secretly obtained by the police without their arraignment before a court.
Most importantly, the campaign against the Tinubu government’s attacks on democratic rights must remain on the front burner and be built upon. In order to hold down the resistance building against its anti-poor neo-liberal offensive which has had a devasting effect on the living standard of the vast majority and set the economy on tailspin, Tinubu government is out to criminalise dissent and protests. This explains the arrest and harassment of journalists and activists including the Nigeria Labour Congress President Joe Ajaero as well as Michael Lenin and others. This descent to civil dictatorship must be resisted.
As part of such a campaign, members of YRC and other left and civil society organizations held a protest at the National Human Rights Commission office in Lagos also on Wednesday September 11. A petition that demands the immediate release of all those detained in connection with #EndBadGovernance protests and a halt to the increasing attacks on democratic rights was submitted.
Yesterday, September 10, the Nigeria Labour Congress repeated its call for the release of all those jailed for their participation in the #EndBadGovernance protests and this call, along with its other demands for an end of attacks on the NLC and trade unions, the reversal of the fuel and electricity price hikes and the immediate implementation of the new minimum wage must be immediately campaigned for.
By and large, we call on working people and youth not to be cowed by the atmosphere of intimidation imposed by the Tinubu government. The economic and social crises are getting worse and Tinubu is unrelenting with his vicious capitalist attacks. Therefore, the building of a mass resistance against anti-poor neo-liberal policies that has started with the August nationwide protest must continue and be linked to the need to build a mass working peoples’ party with a socialist programme to end the misery capitalism has made of Nigeria.
