Today is the 65th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. President Bola Tinubu delivered a speech which was widely broadcast, this morning. He saluted the heroes & heroines who fought the colonial government. But not a single activist in the organised labour of that period was mentioned despite the pivotal role of the trade union movement in the anti-colonial struggle.
And talking of today, he kept up the spin of necessary sacrifice for a better future that’s always used to justify the neoliberal reforms that keep making life more and more difficult for poor working people. Truth be told, it is not us that should be making sacrifices. It is the super rich who are rather making even more money.
According to Oxfam in its inequality report earlier this year, the wealth of the super-rich in Nigeria tripled between 2023 & 2024 to the whooping amount of US$2 trillion. The problem in Nigeria is not lack of wealth or near collapse of the economy. It is and has always been that of a handful of billionaires & multimillionnaires who are stupendously rich at our expense.
To Ọ̀gbẹ́ni Tinubu, as Fẹlá Aníkúlápọ́-Kutì would say: “teacher don’t teach me nonsense”. So therefore teacher, teacher o, àbí na president be your name, make you no teach us nonsense on Independence Day or any day whatsoever.
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