Socialist Workers League - SWL

02/10/2026

WRC Supports Public Sector Workers' Warning Strike:
Unite and Fight for a Living Wage as the Minimum Wage!

Workers’ Rights Campaign welcomes and fully supports the 3-day warning strike of public sector workers which commenced today. The demands of the striking workers under the aegis of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) Trade Union Side are very clear, legitimate and long overdue: a new national minimum wage that shall not be less than five hundred thousand naira (N500,000) considering the realities of cost of living in today’s Nigeria, and; the slashing of the pump price of petrol to N500.

WRC has held a series of online and physical meetings which have brought together labour leaders and rank-and-file workers on the current situation of the working class in Nigeria, and the need for workers to be paid living wages. The current take-home pay of workers in Nigeria cannot take them home. Workers deserve better.

The JNPSNC-TUS has called on the Nigerian state to carry out the necessary measures that will entail decent work and decent living standards for the Nigerian worker. Enough is enough. We are not slaves. The trade unions issued adequate notice to the Federal Government of Nigeria. But instead of addressing the concerns raised by the trade union side, President Bola Tinubu chose to push forward the continuation of his anti-working people economic policies that benefit only the rich capitalists, claiming the benefits will trickle down.

We have heard all that before. Nigerian workers will not be deceived and will not accept the continuation of the monkey dey work, baboon dey chop politics and economics of the ruling class. The Nigerian working class has a rich history of struggle and a future to win through struggle.

WRC urges the JNPSNC Trade Union Side not to relent. This three-day warning strike must be followed up with a massive public sector strike wave, as in 1989 to 1990, leading to a significant upward review of the national minimum wage.

We also seize this opportunity to call on the NLC, TUC all industrial unions across all sectors and all pro-working people organisations in the broader civil society movement to rise in unison to support this unfolding struggle for a new national minimum wage that will be a living wage.

Dare to struggle, dare to win! Unite and fight for a living wage!! Unite and fight for workers’ rights!!!

Sgd.
Frances AKINJOLE
Chairperson, WRC

Sgd.
Bàbá AYÉ
Secretary, WRC
WRC Press Statement: 2 October 2026

Workers’ Rights Campaign welcomes and fully supports the 3-day warning strike of public sector workers which commenced today. The demands of the striking workers under the aegis of the Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council (JNPSNC) Trade Union Side are very clear, legitimate and long o...

01/10/2026

66 Years of Independence: the Cancer is the System.
The Cure Is Revolutionary Workers’ Power!
Workers’ Rights Campaign rejects the interpretation of the trajectory of Nigeria’s independence and the current state of the nation made by President Bola Tinubu in his Independence Day speech today. It is true that Nigeria has endured because of the efforts of poor working people in urban and rural areas. It is true that despite the difficulties that the working masses have faced and continue to face, and how frustrating these have been; we continue to have hope for a better tomorrow.

It is however, deceptive to speak of a shared “inheritance of independence” between the working classes and those of native exploiters and oppressors that have ruled the country since October 1, 1960. It is politically fraudulent and a distortion of history to claim that the reality of agony that has been a constant fixture of the lives of the vast majority of the population is simply the outcome of a focus on the symptoms of maldevelopment by earlier administrations of the Nigerian state. It is equally manipulative and self-serving to claim that the current administration is addressing or can address this cancer.

Woes, suffering, and pauperisation were the lot of working people in Nigeria during the colonial era. These have also beset us to no end since the end of direct colonialism – as a neocolonial capitalist society. And the reason for that is simple: the capitalist system is designed to further our exploitation for the benefit of a tiny minority comprising the ruling class, irrespective of the colour of their skin, their ethnicity or religion.

The working class, peasants, poor traders, women, and marginalized youth were the popular driving force behind the anti-colonial struggle. The 1945 COLA General Strike marked a turning point towards decolonisation. The local capitalists and middle classes, who were eager to supplant the colonialists, hailed organised labour. But as soon as it was clear to them that the British colonial rulers would hand over local power to them, they abandoned the working people.

We have seen every section of the ruling class do likewise whenever they were in opposition. Those who make up the APC today hailed the working masses and youth during the 2012 January Uprising. Similarly, every section of the ruling class which wields state power at any point in time has made claims about turning things around for the better.

But even when they achieve economic growth, such growth is always primarily for the benefit of a handful of people. Nigeria has always been and remains a very rich country but with a vast number of poor people. Why? Because a few stupendously rich people and their imperial overlords steal us blind, exploiting our labour and the richness of our lands.

Thus, WRC urges the working people in Nigeria not to be deceived by President Bola Tinubu and the APC. They, like those in the PDP, ADC, NDC and all parties of the bosses, are part of the problem. The solution is revolution to win our liberation. The challenge is for us to organize, build worker’s power and revolutionary parties like the African Acton Congress, with an anti-capitalist programme for total liberation and the building of socialism: an inclusive society where the mass of the people will utilize our collective wealth for the development and wellbeing of each and every one of us.

The one-percenters of billionaires and multimillionaires, will never save us. Only we ourselves can liberate ourselves.

Frances AKINJOLE
Chairperson, WRC

Bàbá AYÉ
Secretary, WRC

(WRC Press Statement – 1st of October, 2026)

Workers’ Rights Campaign rejects the interpretation of the trajectory of Nigeria’s independence and the current state of the nation made by President Bola Tinubu in his Independence Day speech today. It is true that Nigeria has endured because of the efforts of poor working people in urban and r...

16/09/2026

The Working Class in Nigeria: 66 Years After Independence

On 1 October, Nigeria will mark the 66th anniversary of its flag independence. How well have workers fared? What are the conditions, aspirations, struggles and power of the working class today?

The Workers’ Rights Campaign (WRC) and Elegant Nurses Forum (ENF) invite you to join us in a public discussion on these and other questions at our monthly webinar for September with the theme "The Working Class in Nigeria: Sixty-six Years After Independence."

Presenting the lead-off for discussions will be:

Joe Ajaero
President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)

Gbenga Komolafe
General SecretaryFederation of Informal Workers’ Organizations of Nigeria (FIWON)

Date: Sunday 27 September 2026
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm WAT

Register ahead to join this important discussion. This is the link to register on zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/-oJI4zUFR76rz2YrQdoQ3A

Unite and Fight, For Workers Rights!

12/08/2026

"The Ghanaian anti-LGBTQ campaign should therefore not be understood as simply a cultural disagreement about homosexuality. It is part of a larger political struggle. It is about who controls the body. Who defines the gender, family and morality. Who gets to speak, organise and live openly. And whose life is valuable. That is why socialists cannot treat q***r liberation as an optional issue.

There is a temptation in radical spaces to say: “Workers first. LGBTQ issues later.” That is a mistake because there is no liberation in which some workers are told that they must remain invisible. There is no socialist future in which women are still subordinate. There is no revolutionary politics that reproduces the same patriarchal hierarchy inside its own movement.

And there is no serious struggle against capitalism if we refuse to understand how capitalism, patriarchy, religion, nationalism and class power can reinforce one another. The answer cannot be to replace one hierarchy with another. It cannot be to tell q***r workers that they must wait until after the revolution. The path to revolution must already contain the values of the world we claim to want. It is is our duty as revolutionary socialists to fight for this in every space we occupy.

Our self-emancipatory struggle must unite feminism, q***r freedom, workers’ rights, and opposition to racism, patriarchy, ableism, and every system that denies exploited and oppressed people dignity, irrespective of their race, ethnicity, nationality or sexual orientation."

Read the full article on the SWL website:

The Legislation Ghana’s Parliament passed an amended Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025 on 29 May. This revived a piece of legislation that had already passed Parliament in February 2024 but died when the previous Parliament was dissolved without presidential assent. The bill is now ...

24/06/2026

“The travails of Sowore…exposes the limitations of the law. The justice system in an unjust class system cannot but be a system of systematic injustice. It is a system that primarily serves the interests of the state to repress radical alternative voices that speak truth to power and demand a new, better system for a liberatory society.”
“Sowore cannot be cowered no matter what they do. AAC and its teeming members will not be deterred…Onward forward until victory!”

“Sowore has been a thorn in the flesh of different sections of the ruling class at the time that they wielded state power, since the return to civil rule in 1999. He pioneered radical civic journalism as publisher of Sahara Reporters, an online outlet that has recorded several breaking news exposés over the last twenty years. It is however instructive that the barrage of lawfare and repressive measures commenced with the building of the African Action Congress (AAC) as a revolutionary party with a critical mass.

AAC was formed in 2018 and participated in the 2019 general elections. The party has been unabashed in stating its intent: deepening radical struggle with of the masses for total liberation and building a better society where the people and the planet come first and last, instead of the billionaires and vagabonds in power that exploit and rule over us today.

It has been very clear that participating in elections is a necessary but insufficient part of this struggle. Street protests, support for workers strikes, defence of communities devastated by pollution, standing up to resist demolition of working-class quarters, and mobilising rebellion in the face of police brutality have all been repertoires of the party’s extra-parliamentary revolutionary politics.

AAC has emerged as the first revolutionary mass party in Nigeria, with a membership in the tens of thousands, and which has also successfully maintained a capacity to initiate or provide organic radical leadership to mass street struggles on the ground for almost a decade, and participate in three electoral cycles thus far.
This is what the state fears. That is why it has sustained a salvo of repressive measures against Sowore since 2019.”

Read the full article on the SWL website

The arrest of Omoyele Sowore on Monday, 22 June underscores the highhandedness of Justice Mohammed Garba Umar of the Federal High Court, Abuja, who had unjustly revoked Sowore’s bail a week earlier. But it also does more than that; it is yet another demonstration of the draconian nature of the Nig...

10/05/2026

“The Elegant Nurses Forum (ENF) has emerged as a formidable force in defence of nurses in Nigeria. It has boldly and consistently been a voice challenging the oppression of nurses collectively, or drawing the attention of the world to the violation of the rights of nurses as workers, three-quarters of whom are women.

ENF has also crusaded against patriarchy, fighting for gender equality. The Forum has exposed sexual harassment of nurses, including those working in the military, as is the ongoing case of Ex-Corporal Matilda Anighoro, who has levelled serious allegations against General S.O. Okoigi, which the Nigerian Army is sweeping under the rug.

The struggle of ENF has not been limited to the cause of nurses and nursing students. It has drawn public attention to unethical practices in the health sector, and the impact of these on poor working-class people.

The Forum has been unrelenting in demanding governments’ and private sector employers accountability in the health sector, including the need for adequate funding and democratic governance of healthcare delivery to ensure health for all.”

ENF is the rank-and-file nurses network that’s become an inspiring beacon for working-class struggle from below in Nigeria. Read the full article on the SWL website:

The Elegant Nurses Forum (ENF) has emerged as a formidable force in defence of nurses in Nigeria. It has boldly and consistently been a voice challenging the oppression of nurses collectively, or drawing the attention of the world to the violation of the rights of nurses as workers, three-quarters o...

11/01/2026

In today’s Sunday Independent interview, Baba Aye puts in perspective (the differences in) how Nigerians fared last year and the signs of what the New Year would mean for working-class people. He also addresses controversies surrounding the new tax laws, the continued contrived crisis in Rivers State and reasons and matters arising from the attacks of the United States of parts of North America (USA) on Nigeria. The interview ends with a look at the challenges and opportunities that the current national situation presents for the African Action Congress as the only “masses-oriented party” on the ballot for the 2027 elections, as the electioneering season will soon commence.

As 2025 ended and 2026 began, how would you describe Nigerians’ lives in the outgone year? Last year was a terrible year for poor working ...

13/12/2025

Workers' Rights Campaign webinar on: State of Workers' Rights in Nigeria and the Future of Work in Nigeria

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