“The deal can be seen as a victory for the unions but not a total one,” said the BBC’s correspondent in Lagos about the recent general strike that rocked two month old Umaru Yar’Adua’s presidency. The four-day general strike started on 20 June and won widespread support throughout the country. Read more...

"We need a revolution like in Ukraine or the Philippines” was the call made by the opposition in the aftermath of the corrupt presidential elections last month. Read more...

Violence erupted in Nigeria around the council elections on 14th April. Now with the presidential elections coming next week amid allegations of corruption, the hoped for democratic breakthrough looks doubtful. Unfortunately, there is no one party standing that will defend the interests of the working class and challenge the power of capital. Here Keith Spencer and Luke Cooper analyse the elections and argue that, such were the working class struggles of recent years, there should have been a working class party for whom to vote – but this outcome has been sabotaged by the trade union bureaucracy. Read more...

On 9 June, workers in Nigeria launched a three day general strike in protest against the governments 20 per cent hike in the price of oil to the equivalent of more than 20 pence a litre. The average income the equivalent of about 50p a day. Nigeria is the eighth biggest oil producer in the world and cheap fuel and kerosene for heating is the only benefit the mass of ordinary Nigerians receive from their natural wealth. Read more...

The continuing crisis in Nigeria, expressed in four general strikes in four years, has led the Nigeria Labour Congress to launch a Labour Party. This is an important organisational step as it gives the workers their own alternative to the ruling class parties such as Obansanjo’s People’s Democratic Party. Read more...

Keith Spencer reviews “This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis.” by Karl Maier, Penguin Press pbk.
The aborted Miss World competition and the deaths of more than 200 people have reinforced in the West the idea that Nigeria is a land being ripped apart by religious and ethnic hatreds. Read more...

Keith Sellick reviews This House Has Fallen: Midnight in Nigeria by Karl Maier, Penguin Press Read more...