The Origins of the Nigerian Uprising

The riots that rocked Nigeria in October, which resulted in massacres by police forces and sabotage and looting by the dispossessed masses in many cities of the country, began earlier that month with a protest against the violence of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the national police. For many years, the SARS has been responsible for violence and murders against the subordinate strata of the population, and for some time a protest movement has existed to oppose it. The October protests finally compelling the government to dissolve the SARS.

However, within days it was discovered that this measure was limited to changing the name of the department. The a growing mass of proletarians then returned to the public sqares, already exasperated by misery and unemployment.

As has been repeated hundreds of times in countries on the periphery of world capitalism, where the average age of the population is remarkably low, crowds of young people, condemned to a condition of oppression and marginalization, have taken to the streets to express their anger. They met with ruthless police repression, leaving us many dozen dead.

The roots of the discontent of the proletarian youth of Nigeria are all in the bankruptcy budget of this country, which 60 years ago managed to free itself from the yoke of British colonial domination.

Before independence, agriculture was the most important part of the economy. Colonial rule forced the cultivation of crops destined for the world market, such as cocoa, palm oil, and peanuts, which made up 70% of exports, to which were added cotton and gum arabic. However, this never supplanted subsistence crops, which were left to meet 95% of the country’s internal food needs.

In 60 years of political independence, the country’s economic and social imbalance has only amplified. While the population has multiplied by four, reaching about 200 million inhabitants, 60% of the working population is still employed in agriculture, and in the countryside small, inefficient subsistence farms predominate. This inefficiency means that agriculture’s contribution to the national economy does not exceed 40% of the Gross Domestic Product. Despite tens of millions laboring in the fields, Nigeria must import $3 billion in staple foods annually to meet its internal needs.

The government has repeatedly tried to stimulate local production, but without success. To this end, it has tried several times to close the border with neighboring Benin, which sells cheap food products, mainly rice, to Nigeria. However, these still make it into the country through smuggling.

Another source of “distortion” in the country’s economy – which we understand to be the inevitable result of capitalist anarchy, which orients production according to the opportunities for the accumulation of capital, regardless of human needs – is the convulsive history of Nigerian industry. With independence, the local bourgeoisie promised to establish a national manufacturing sector that could replace many imported goods. But this fell by the wayside with the development of oil extraction which, promising large revenues, has channeled the bulk of investments into the petroleum sector. This lack of investment has caused other areas of industry to stagnate, and exports of manufactured goods have now fallen to a third of the maximum reached before the 2008 crisis.

In this depressed economy, both in agriculture and manufacturing, the only relatively prosperous sector is oil. Nigeria, with a daily production of just over two million barrels, is the leading African producer of petroleum. But even in this sector not all is well: today’s daily production is at least 300,000 barrels per day lower than the peak reached in the first decade of this century, when the country’s population counted 50 million fewer. In such a context it is increasingly difficult for the Nigerian ruling class to face the explosions of discontent from a young proletariat which, thanks to its numbers and concentration, will resolutely take the path of class struggle.