Nigeria

A regularly updated collection of statements by African socialists, trade unions and democratic forces on the recent coup in Niger.
Nanre Nafziger — In Nigeria’s recent election cycle, many citizens looked to Peter Obi for change. But the country needs people-led social transformation, not saviors.
Dung Pam Sha — Allegations of fraud and intimidation have cast a shadow over the recent vote.
Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) speaks to Nigerian socialist and activist, Alex Batubo, about the elections this month, and the political and economic situation in the country.
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[For more on Nigeria, click HERE.]

By Baba Aye, SWL national chairperson

January 3, 2013 -- International Socialist Tendency -- The Socialist Workers League (SWL Nigeria) is bothered by the continued attacks against Comrade Femi Aborisade (pictured), a leading member of the SWL and the editor of Socialist Worker, the League’s newspaper, who is a senior principal lecturer at the Polytechnic Ibadan. Eight armed men stormed his house on December 29, 2012. This was the second of such attacks within five weeks.

the SWL promptly wrote to the commissioner of police demanding that action be taken to safeguard Comrade Aborisade and indeed all residents within the premises of the institution. At that time, we were rather reticent and refrained from categorically declaring the attack as being political. But for similar attacks to take place barely a month after, with the armed hoodlums calling out his name and demanding that he comes out, shows that there is much more to this matter than one of armed robbery.

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The neoliberal government of Ben Ali was overthrown by popular rebellion in 2010. Can the IMF co-opt the Arab Spring?

By Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife

February 2, 2012 – Links international Journal of Socialist Renewal -- With International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde in Tunisia today, the stage is set for ideological war over the progress of democratic revolutions.

Until 27-year-old fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi committed suicide by immolation in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia was packaged as an IMF success story. In 2008, dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was embraced by Lagarde’s predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn: "Economic policy adopted here is a sound policy and is the best model for many emerging countries.”