ONE THING that needs to be understood is the issue of attack by the Nigerian ruling class on activist foreigners residing in Nigeria, but who identify with the poor and working people in the fight for their freedom.
The case of having pro-labour internationalists in our midst is not new as it was not only through the efforts of Nigerians residing in Nigeria that we had our independence. Other foreigners and political groups abroad joined hands in putting pressure on their home country like in the case of Britain in order for us to be granted independence in 1960.
This category of activists, better described as internationalists, engaged in class struggles beyond borders. Instead of the government recognising them for what they were, the government often times tried to criminalise their altruistic mission and whip up sentiment against them on a non-existent nationalistic basis; with the purpose of isolating them from other Nigerians fighting for the same cause.
It would be foolhardy to be bought over by the government propagandists that such internationalists are criminals, terrorists or cyberfraudsters as claimed against a foreigner that police alleged to be the owner of the bookshop in the second floor of the NLC Complex in Abuja, FCT.
The point is that if the police authorities have any allegations as weighty, this should be made open rather than being used as weapon of distraction to draw people away from the ongoing struggle of the people against hunger.
On the other hand, only a gullible few could take the police seriously, as it has largely become a pattern now for it accusing opposition and opponents of treasonable offences for criticising the government’s anti-poor policies and its path in enthroning dictatorship in the country.
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The case of having pro-labour internationalists in our midst is not new as it was not only through the efforts of Nigerians residing in Nigeria that we had our independence. Other foreigners and political groups abroad joined hands in putting pressure on their home country like in the case of Britain in order for us to be granted independence in 1960. But since 1960, our independence has not been full as the greater aspirations of the people are yet to be met. Therefore, the struggle continued unabated in a neo-colonial setting as it is the case up to the present period.
In the 1990s, too, another scholar, Dr Patrick Wilmot, a Jamaican, who taught sociology at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria since the Nigerian Civil War, had a radical bent especially in the struggle against apartheid South Africa and he was noted to have influenced Murtala Mohammed regime along this line.
Also, as the ruling class shared the same interest with foreign monopolists in the West along with their agents and multilateral institutions as IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc., in the exploitation of our economy at the expense of the poor working people who are unemployed, hungry, diseased, and homeless. Such collaborations were never seen by the ruling government as foreign-induced crime against humanity.
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Our political history is not without instances of this kind of allegations levied against labour-friendly activists and socialists from abroad who were attacked by the ruling government for being on the side of the working people in the cause of waging class struggle.
This was the case in 1964 with an Irish scholar and trade unionist, Dr Victor Allen, who was associated with the Dockworkers Union’s strike. He was even detained for months, and his case caused a diplomatic row between Nigeria and Britain when the case was debated in the UK Parliament.
In the 1990s, too, another scholar, Dr Patrick Wilmot, a Jamaican, who taught sociology at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria since the Nigerian Civil War, had a radical bent especially in the struggle against apartheid South Africa and he was noted to have influenced Murtala Mohammed regime along this line.
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But the Babangida-led government later saw him as “a double security agent” injurious to the security of the country. He was kidnapped by the government and sent out of the country to Britain without being charged to court.
Whatever the government said about him was never taken seriously by anyone. He remains a hero in Nigeria up to the present and received as one on visiting the country a couple of times thereafter.
Comrade Olamosu is National Secretary, Socialist Labour
