Nigeria In The Crosshairs: Separating Fact From Fiction
Above photo: Trump Truth Social post. The threat of U.S. military action in Nigeria has little to do with protecting
Nigeria
World Bank Acknowledges Poverty Increase In Nigeria
The World Bank projects that 139 million Nigerians will be living in poverty by the end of this year, a nearly 60% increase from 87 million in 2023, when President Bola Tinubu started implementing the reforms it had prescribed on the first day of his term.
Promising to slash petrol prices during his election campaign, Tinubu declared in his presidential inaugural speech on May 29, 2023, “the fuel subsidy is gone,” overseeing a petrol price hike of nearly 488% in Africa’s largest producer by October 2024.
This also increased the price of electricity multifold because more than 58% of the Nigerian households, left out of the national grid, rely on petrol and diesel generators.
With storage capacity and cold-chain logistics limited, a lack of “reliable access to power also leads to high food losses.
A Year Later, Africa’s Gen Z Uprising Is Only More Emboldened
Over the past year, a wave of mass protests has swept through the capitals of some African states. From Nairobi to Lagos, Accra to Dakar, angry protesters have marched to the sound of exploding tear gas shells and live bullets to rail against hunger and inequality while demanding an end to IMF austerity. From June to August this year, the movement rose again with tens of thousands exploding onto the streets in Kenya, while hundreds of activists turned up at an anniversary event in Lagos, Nigeria to reflect and map out next steps.
Provoked by deep economic frustrations and lack of opportunities, these youth-led protests have shaken Africa’s aging ruling classes to their bones, making a forceful argument for a new social pact, anchored on a paradigm of national sovereignty, inclusive growth and social welfare.
Understanding The Plot To Break Ghana And Destroy The AES Countries
There’s a storm brewing over Ghana, and it didn’t start yesterday. The tragedy is layered, the signs are familiar, and for those who have lived through history’s brutal cycles of foreign meddling and orchestrated collapse, it’s déjà vu all over again.
Since President John D. Mahama came to power, Ghana has been quietly strengthening ties with Sahel countries, especially Burkina Faso and Mali, who have rejected French and American military presence and charted new Pan-African courses.
The AES alliance threatens Western hegemony. It signals a post-FRANCOPHONE, post-NATO Africa. Ghana’s collaboration with these countries raised alarm bells in London, Paris, and Washington.
Hunger By Policy: Fasting For Food Security In Nigeria
As President Bola Tinubu’s deepening neoliberal reforms to appease the IMF worsens hunger, his government’s agriculture ministry has outraged Nigerians by organizing prayers and fasting in the hopes that a “divine intervention” will help improve food security.
The first of these prayers was to be held on Monday, Jun 16, followed by two more on the successive Mondays on June 23 and June 30.
The invitation to attend these prayers in a fasted state was sent out to the staff through an internal circular dated June 11 by Adedayo Modupe, the ministry’s Director of Human Resource Management.
“How do you expect a hungry man to start fasting again?
In Lagos, Nigeria, A Farmers’ Market That Sells All Week
Every Saturday in Ikoyi, Lagos (Nigeria), a small but steady ritual unfolds behind Nakenoh’s Boulevard mall. TKD Farms Farmers’ Market, founded in 2017, brings together a rotating group of vendors—15 to 20 each week, out of a larger pool of 185. What happens here is more than retail. It’s a working model of what a community-centered economy can look like.
This isn’t a typical market. Vendors don’t just show up, set up, and sell. They interact, adapt, and build relationships that carry beyond the day’s sales. The layout changes weekly—no vendor has a fixed spot. This prevents any one business from monopolizing customer flow and encourages everyone to connect with different neighbors each time.
BRICS Expands To 54.6% Of World Population By Adding Nigeria
BRICS continues to grow. On 17 January, it officially admitted Nigeria as a new partner country.
Nigeria has the world’s sixth-largest population, with the biggest population on the African continent.
In addition to being Africa’s second-largest economy, Nigeria is the number one oil producer on the continent.
With the addition of Nigeria, BRICS now has 10 full members and nine partners.
At the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia in 2024, the organization adopted a comprehensive plan to transform the international monetary and financial system, by challenging the dominance of the US dollar and promoting trade and settlement in local currencies.
Together, the extended BRICS+ group represents 54.6% of the world population.
Nigerian President Enforced Violent Crackdown On Hunger Protests
Extrajudicial executions, mass arrests, custodial torture and charges of treason were among the methods used by the Nigerian government to crack down on protests this August against rising hunger and economic hardships. Nigerian civil society, demanding a reversal of President Bola Tinubu’s aggressive implementation of IMF policies that brought about this cost of living crisis on Africa’s largest population, led these protests for 10 days at the beginning of August.
In a report released on November 28, titled “Bloody August,” Amnesty International (AI) documented 24 killings, while “scores of additional cases reported by activists and journalists” are yet to be verified.
BRICS Adds 13 New ‘Partner Countries’ At Historic Summit In Kazan, Russia
The Global South-led organization BRICS is growing. More and more countries support the group’s mission: to build a multipolar world, with alternative economic institutions that are more representative and democratic, not dominated by the Western powers.
BRICS held a summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, where 13 new “partner nations” were accepted.
At this historic meeting, China’s President Xi Jinping referred to BRICS as “a vanguard for advancing global governance reform” and “reform of the international financial architecture”.
Bolivia’s left-wing President Luis Arce argued that “the shield of BRICS and multipolarity” can protect formerly colonized nations, helping them resist “Western unipolarity and the tyranny of the dollar”.
Nigeria Unleashes Massive Repression After #Endhunger Protests
The Nigerian government was clearly very worried by the scale and support for the protests in early August against its anti-human policies of increased fuel prices, higher electric tariffs, unpaid low minimum wages, higher school fees, higher tax rates, higher food prices, higher transport costs and bad governance. They hope that heavy repression will stop future protests against hunger, higher petrol prices and bad governance.
The state tortured dozens and hundreds remain in detention. Some are being held well beyond the constitutional limit of 48 hours before going to court. The High Court in Abuja gave the police a further 60 days for holding over 70 young men from Kano.
Nigerian Trade Unions Hold Two-Day Strike Amid Economic Crisis
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous state and is listed as having the largest economy on the continent with huge deposits of oil, natural gas and other strategic resources.
In possession of these material assets along with the 223 million people that inhabit the West African state, the achievements of Nigeria should be limitless.
However, the system of neo-colonialism in Africa, where the national wealth of various states largely benefits imperialism, is still maintaining a dominant position over the labor and resources of the people. This system of exploitation constitutes the major impediment to genuine sovereignty, economic independence and social emancipation.
Shell’s Exit From Nigeria
Nigerian activists believe Shell’s apparent end to its 87-year operation in the country is an effort to avoid its legal responsibilities while holding onto the potentially profitable side of the business.
In January, the oil giant revealed it had “reached an agreement to sell its Nigerian onshore subsidiary” to Renaissance, a consortium of four Nigerian oil firms and one based in Switzerland.
But despite the $2.8 billion deal, Shell will effectively still own part of the business and will continue to bankroll Renaissance’s onshore exploration in Nigeria going forward.
The company’s press statement confirmed it will loan the new buyers up to $1.2 billion to help them buy their stake in the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC).
Learning From Lenin Today
Not long after I joined the socialist movement as a student at the Polytechnic of Ibadan in 1980, I was introduced to Marxist literature at the Progressive and Socialist Bookshop which was the sole depot of many left-wing publishers from UK, USSR and China that included Zed Books. By the time I entered university as a mature student, I had already worked as a full-time revolutionary assisting Ola Oni, a foremost Marxist revolutionary and scholar at the University of Ibadan where he lectured. He also owned the bookshop.
My generation were inspired by the history of Russia, the only country that achieved a successful socialist revolution in October 1917.
Nigerian Trade Unions Go On Two-day Strike Amid Economic Crisis
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous state and is listed as having the largest economy on the continent with huge deposits of oil, natural gas and other strategic resources.
In possession of these material assets along with the 223 million people that inhabit the West African state, the achievements of Nigeria should be limitless.
However, the system of neo-colonialism in Africa, where the national wealth of various states largely benefits imperialism, is still maintaining a dominant position over the labor and resources of the people. This system of exploitation constitutes the major impediment to genuine sovereignty, economic independence and social emancipation.
Niger Rejects Rules-Based Order
The coup in the West African state of Niger on July 26 and the Russia-Africa Summit the next day in St. Petersburg are playing out in the backdrop of multipolarity in the world order. Seemingly independent events, they capture nonetheless the zeitgeist of our transformative era.
First, the big picture — the Africa summit hosted by Russia on July 27-28 poses a big challenge to the West, which instinctively sought to downplay the event after having failed to lobby against sovereign African nations meeting the Russian leadership. Forty-nine African countries sent their delegations to St. Petersburg, with 17 heads of states traveling in person to Russia to discuss political, humanitarian and economic issues.