PRESS STATEMENT

January 28, 2026.

The Movement for a Socialist Alternative (MSA) unequivocally condemns the violent attacks and arrests carried out by the Nigeria Police Force against peaceful protesters at the premises of the Lagos State House of Assembly. The protesters were residents of Makoko and other affected communities who had gathered peacefully to protest against the unjust and inhumane demolition of their homes by the Lagos State Government under Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

These protesters were law-abiding citizens exercising their constitutional right to peaceful assembly and expression. Their only “crime” was demanding to speak with their elected representatives to raise concerns about the destruction of their homes, livelihoods, and communities. Instead of engaging them, the police responded with brute force, firing tear gas canisters and dispersing the protesters violently. This attack is callous, unjust, and represents a continuation of the suffering already imposed on the working masses of these communities through forced evictions and demolitions.

In the course of this repression, several protesters were arrested in a draconian manner, including Comrade Hassan Soweto. These arrests took place in full view of journalists who were present to cover the protest. Shockingly, members of the press were themselves subjected to police brutality, further exposing the anti-democratic character of this attack. This is a clear violation of press freedom and an attempt to silence public scrutiny of state repression.

MSA demands the immediate and unconditional release of all arrested protesters, as well as a public apology from the Lagos State Government. Beyond this, we demand an immediate halt to the demolition of homes across Lagos State and the reversal of this cruel, anti-poor policy that continues to push working-class families into homelessness and destitution.

The people of Lagos are already grappling with skyrocketing rent, arbitrary levies, and unbearable living costs. Government-led demolitions only worsen this situation by shrinking the already limited housing stock and transferring valuable urban land into the hands of politicians, real estate speculators, and wealthy elites. While luxury estates and high-end apartments continue to spring up across the state, millions of working people are left without affordable and decent housing.

We therefore call on the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), especially their Lagos State chapters, to rise to their historic responsibility. Labour must intervene decisively to challenge Governor Sanwo-Olu’s anti-people policies that are rendering Nigerian workers homeless and deepening poverty in Africa’s most populous city.

MSA views these demolitions as a deliberate strategy of land grabbing carried out in the interests of corrupt capitalist individuals and real estate profiteers. The aim is to dispossess the poor in order to convert communal and working-class residential areas into profit-driven estates that are completely beyond the reach of the masses. Lagos, already facing a severe housing crisis, is being driven into an even deeper catastrophe by these policies.

According to the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Lagos State has a housing deficit of over three million units and at the same time, home ownership and even the rental of modest accommodation have become excessively expensive over the decades. A report referenced by Guardian Nigeria on July 7, 2025, describes the crisis starkly “Despite a steady boom in real estate investment and upscale development, more than 70 percent of residents remain renters, many of them spending a disproportionate share of their income on shelter.”

These facts expose the total failure of successive Lagos State and federal governments to guarantee the basic right to shelter. The current housing crisis is not accidental; it is the result of decades of policies that prioritize profit over people and treat housing as a commodity rather than a social necessity.

The Way Forward

For us in the MSA, the solution to Lagos’ housing crisis cannot be found within the framework of capitalist profit-making and elite land ownership. What is needed is a mass struggle of working people, youths, and the urban poor to reclaim the city for those who produce its wealth. Housing must be taken out of the hands of speculators and placed under democratic public ownership and control.

MSA calls for:

• Release of all the innocent protesters arrested by the Nigerian Police.
• An immediate end to forced evictions and demolitions;
• Massive public investment in affordable, quality housing under democratic management involving workers and community representatives;
• A united movement of labour unions, community groups, and socialist organisations to resist repression and fight for a Lagos that works for the

Signed

Aj. Dagga Tolar

General Secretary, MSA.