Only the Organised Force of the Working Class Can Stop the Growing Repression and Attacks on Workers’ Rights

PRESS STATEMENT

The Movement for a Socialist Alternative (MSA), the Nigerian section of the International Socialist Alternative (ISA), strongly condemns the arrest and detention of Comrade Kassa Mampo, Nobert Kouto, and other trade union leaders and members of the Confédération Syndicale des Travailleurs Du Bénin (CSTB) by the Republican Police in Cotonou. We extend full solidarity to the courageous workers and students in the Benin Republic who have continued to resist the anti-worker, anti-democratic policies of the Patrice Talon regime.

On May Day—a historic day of workers’ international unity and struggle—the regime carried out a brazen crackdown, detaining union leaders without charge for more than 48 hours. These arrests were not isolated acts but a calculated effort to crush the growing resistance against neoliberal attacks on wages, public education, and essential services. This brutal repression is a desperate move by a regime increasingly fearful of the organised power of the working class.

These events are not unfamiliar to us in Nigeria. The Tinubu-led government has similarly responded with hostility and state violence against labour leaders who dare to challenge its profit-driven, anti-poor policies. From police crackdowns on protests to public smear campaigns against union organisers, the playbook is the same: intimidate, divide, and repress. However, as in Nigeria and Benin, workers will not be silenced.

The Talon regime, despite coming into power in 2015 as a ‘reformer’, has over the past decade shown nothing but contempt for the rights and demands of the working masses. From banning protests to deploying police to suppress demonstrations against inflation and the rising cost of living, the regime has fully exposed itself as a tool of French imperialism and local capitalist elites.

Yet, this crackdown is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of fear—fear of a repeat of the 1990s mass uprising that led to the collapse of the repressive Kérékou regime, fear of a regional wave of resistance like that in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, and above all, fear of a mobilised and politically conscious working class.

The reality in Benin today is one of deepening poverty, skyrocketing food prices, and decaying social services. The vast majority of people suffer daily under the burden of capitalist exploitation, while a tiny elite enriches itself through the plunder of public wealth. Teachers, healthcare workers, and civil servants earn wages too low to survive. Public schools and hospitals are in shambles. And yet, the state responds not with support, but with repression.

This is why the struggle must go beyond mere resistance. It must be transformed into an organised political alternative. The MSA calls on the CSTB and all trade union federations in Benin to urgently begin the process of forming a Party for the Working People of Benin. This party must be built on a socialist programme that prioritises the needs of the people over the profits of the elite.

Such a programme would include:

• Nationalisation of key sectors of the economy under democratic control of the working class and communities.
• Free, quality public education and healthcare funded by the state.
• Living wages and full employment.
• Public ownership of land, natural resources, and infrastructure for collective benefit.
• An end to all forms of imperialist domination, whether from France, the US, China, or Russia.

While we welcome the anti-French imperialism stance adopted by the regimes in the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso under Ibrahim Traoré. But history teaches us that no individual leader, no matter how sincere, can defeat imperialism alone. The heroic legacy of Thomas Sankara is a reminder that only the mass action of the working class can bring about lasting, democratic, socialist change.

This means building organs of workers’ power—committees in workplaces, neighbourhoods, schools, and barracks. It means appealing to the rank-and-file soldiers and police officers, who are themselves part of the working class, to break with the oppressive state and stand with their class siblings in struggle. They must recognise that their enemy is not the protesting teacher or striking civil servant, but the capitalist elite who exploit them both.

President Patrice Talon represents this capitalist elite. His government governs not for the people, but for the profits of multinational corporations and the local bourgeoisie. This is why workers are being arrested, students are being silenced, and poverty continues to rise.

The only answer is for the working class to take power into its own hands. A government of workers, by workers, and for workers must be built. This is not just a call for resistance—it is a call for revolution. The MSA believes that only a socialist Benin, founded on workers’ democracy and international solidarity, can ensure a future free of exploitation, oppression, and imperialist domination.

We call on all workers, students, youth, unemployed, and oppressed people to unite and fight for this future. Let the CSTB take the first step. The time to build the party of the working class is now.

Solidarity Forever!

Signed

Aj. Dagga Tolar

General Secretary, MSA

daggatolar@yahoo.com