INTRODUCING SOLIDARITY

Paper for Organsing Workers and Youth

We welcome you to this first edition of our paper: SOLIDARITY. It is a paper for the working people in the factories, offices, or on the streets. A paper for the poor farmers and the urban poor, who are denied a voice in the mainstream media. Solidarity is a paper for all working-class youths and students. It is guided by the philosophy of Marxism, with the singular purpose of bringing to being the clear necessity of the working masses to organise and mobilise their numbers into the arena of STRUGGLE to undertake the task of a socialist transformation of society that will free up the wealth and resources of the country from the locked-grip of the capitalists and their monstrous greed for profit than meeting the needs and aspiration of the working masses.

            The SOLIDARITY is produced by workers, youth and students to mirror their own issues, not from the perspective of the ruling elites, whose world view is permanently dominated by a rabid desire to make super profits that corruptly enriches them at the peril of the wellbeing of the working masses. This paper will not be welcomed and supported by the Bourgeoisie and members of the ruling elites, including the entire crop of the capitalist class and members of the billionaire club. They are the ones, who own industries exploiting the sweat and blood of workers and the oppressed masses to build empires for themselves; those who make the policies that drive the underdevelopment of the economy and society, making the country into a dumping ground and a vast sea of unemployment for millions of working-class youths. Our hope, therefore, is complete reliance on the working people, who live and depend on the paltry minimum wage or daily hustle for some stipends to meet their daily wants, to read, write for, support and raise funds for the paper.

            The SOLIDARITY will focus on reporting on workers’ struggles, both at the workplace and working-class communities, including in youths’ and students’ struggle for independent unionism and adequate public funding for education. We will also report on issues affecting all other strata of oppressed people, be they traders, artisans, including women and the need for gender equality; all being issues overlooked in mainstream media for political correctness or sensational purposes. It will also constantly analyse the state of the economy and political situations in the country from the working-class point of view. By this, we mean from the perspective of the working people, who are at the receiving end of the pro-rich government policies, making life hard for us all; issues that are directly and indirectly affecting the oppressed.

            These issues, whether it is anti-labour, women oppression, community and students’ struggles, etc. will be reported the way workers and the working masses are experiencing it. The mainstream media claims to be “free”, but in reality it merely defends the right and freedom of the ruling elites and the few members of the billionaire club to continue to dominate society, live a luxurious life while condemning a lot of the working masses into a life of poverty. They also at the same time shifts the blame for the crisis in society to the working masses, when in reality the failure is that of the ruling elites and the capitalist system they represent. They have proved incapable of developing the means of production in the neocolonial backward AFRICA, condemning the continent to a mere source of raw material while continuing to guarantee a market for Industrial Europe, US and China.

            News is therefore not freely reported as they want us to believe. The capitalist politicians decide the news and how it must be reported, which explains why it is only members of the billionaire club who are allowed access to owning a media outfit to defend their class interests. This also explains why it tries to control the media through legislations to stifles alternative discourse and reasoning that are not aligned to its class interest. It is on this template that the working masses stand. The right to freely and boldly canvass an alternative worldview of the working class dictates why this Paper is necessary.

            The mainstream capitalist- funded mass media will not consistently report how they exploit workers and why capitalism is not working to benefit the majority of the people. They report the views of the ruling elites and laud the image of the system in flowery words, even when it is clear it is a failed system. Even when capitalist politicians and merchants of capital have repeatedly not met any of their electoral promises. They are repackaged and re-presented to us by the media for new mandates to continue with their ruinous neoliberal policies of deregulation and privatization at the detriment of the wellbeing of the working masses.

            Workers and the oppressed people in Nigeria need to own their mass paper that tells their story. They also need to work out a programme and the best tactics to defeat the capitalist system that makes life miserable for the working masses. The paper for workers and the oppressed will not subject itself to the control of the big bosses, nor seek their support or funds of members of the billionaire club, who exploit workers in the factory, refuse to pay minimum wage and defend the government of the capitalist class. The SOLIDARITY is the paper for and of the working masses, and will constantly and consistently put first the interest of the working people, build consciousness and raise the need for an independent political platform of the working masses that will represent our interest electorally and build the necessary followership to accomplish a Revolution of the working masses that will replace capitalism with scientific socialism, and birth a Workers and poor Farmers’ government in Nigeria.

            This is what our paper, SOLIDARITY, stands for. A paper that aims to teach and report our struggles in work-places, communities, including students’ and youths’ struggles against all forms of anti-poor policies. We believe that buying and reading the Solidarity, as workers, students, traders, artisans and poor farmers, etc., will strengthen our collective struggles, establish solidarity among workers in their struggles and enable us to draw inspiration from the experiences of workers worldwide. Write opinions and letters to the Editor; also buy and sell the paper! Organise reading sessions and discussions around the articles in the paper; report for the paper, introduce it to others and invite others to join us in building a media outlet to air the views of the working masses. Your support and donation to our paper, Solidarity, will help us to produce more editions and spread the idea of socialism, which is the only alternative to end the misery of capitalist greed in Nigeria and internationally.

            We are happy to say this first edition is a collectors’ item for all working-class activists, workers, poor farmers, urban poor, youth and student. We x-rayed in details the import of the #EndSARS protest and the lessons to be drawn from it, as it shows the necessity that the working class must throw its weights behind and seek to provide leadership for any mass struggle, and that it is capable of attaining a successful revolution on account of its strength. We point out and call on all the hundreds of thousands of youth involved in the movement to step up their consciousness by learning Marxism and joining the MSA, where we can all collectively act together to guide and strengthen the struggles of the working masses.

            This edition also concludes that the 2021 budget is a budget that will only consolidate poverty and the underdevelopment of the economy. This is an edition that calls on workers to reclaim their trade unions and turn them into fighting organs for the defence of their welfare and wellbeing.

            The edition also coincided with the return of students to campus after the longest strike in the universities and calls on students to struggle for an independent student movement that is free from the control and dictates of the management. It rejects deregulation and privatization and calls on the working masses to oppose the increase in electricity tariff and pump prices of fuel. It calls on communities to get organized and fight to defeat these anti-people policies.

            It also announces the birth of the Movement of a Socialist Alternative (MSA), the circumstances behind it and calls for the working masses to join us for us all to struggle for a new society, where poverty, hunger, unemployment and diseases shall no longer be the vogue.

            If you agree with any of our articles, kindly reach us via call or email: socialistmovementng@gmail.com; 08133927663 and 08179846115. Or you can ask any questions after buying and reading SOLIDARITY or any of our articles on the MSA from our members. Follow our websites for the latest comments and statements on current socio-political issues: socialistmovementng.org.