RELEASE HASSAN TAIWO SOWETO AND OTHERS NOW!

PRESS RELEASE

The Solidarity Network for Workers’ Rights (SNWR) condemns in the strongest terms the sudden abduction, arrest, and detention of Hassan Taiwo Soweto, spokesperson for the #EndBadGovernance Movement (Lagos), alongside other protesters at the site of the protest at the Lagos State House of Assembly. They were abducted/arrested today during a peaceful protest against the callous, unjust, and unmerited demolition and forceful eviction of poor working-class communities, in Makoko, Oworonshoki, Owode Onirin, and others.

Comrades and affected victims have repeatedly called on the Lagos State Governor to heed the voice of the working class and the poor residents of these communities through various means, such as press releases and press conferences. After a long period of passiveness and the callous character of the state Governor, including his representatives, who have consistently used state repressive apparatuses to silence the victims of demolition, today’s protest was met with brutal state repression. According to reports gathered via social media platforms, police, on the orders of the Governor and other state parliamentarians, unleashed teargas and fired live bullets to disperse peaceful demonstrators. A protester was seen in a video clip shared on the WhatsApp platform sustaining a gunshot injury to the leg, and amid the chaos caused by the state’s repression, a woman has reportedly been separated from her baby.

The protesters were largely victims of the demolitions which include workers, traders, and residents defending their right to housing and livelihood. Demolition in Nigeria today is a means of making the poor and the working class homeless, with the sole aim of reallocating those lands for the big private profiteers, the estate capital, and not for public development and purposes. This occurs with no proper notice and without any provision for adequate alternatives or compensation. We would like to reiterate that Lagos State is not only for the rich and the privileged; these are people’s lands.

The Lagos State Government is acting as an enforcer for land grabbers, real estate profiteers, and capitalist developers, violently clearing poor communities to expand profit-driven estates. This tradition has become usual with the state capitalists at all levels, including in Abuja, where the government claims to be demolishing houses for public benefit. However, history has told us otherwise. Instead, these lands grabbed by these people were reallocated to their government cronies and estate profiteers, not to establish public infrastructure for the benefit of the people. This is accumulation by dispossession, the theft of land and life from the poor to enrich a privileged few. Just in the last few days, many people who are victims of demolition have reportedly died due to despair and homelessness. The state’s monopoly on force is being deployed to criminalize poverty and silence resistance.

We therefore demand:

1. The immediate and unconditional release of Hassan Taiwo Soweto and all arrested protesters.

2. An immediate halt to all demolitions and forced evictions across Lagos.

3. Adequate compensation and resettlement for all affected residents as a matter of social justice and human dignity.

4. An end to police repression against peaceful protests and community resistance.

We appeal to the labour and trade unions to support the protests and shut down big businesses in Lagos State as a direct protest against the interests and livelihoods of private capital.

SNWR calls for broader, united, and mass mobilization of workers, youth, community residents, and the poor to resist state repression and defeat the alliance of politicians and estate profiteers.

Only collective struggle and democratic mass action can defend the right to housing and the city for those who produce its wealth.

Release Soweto and Others Now! 

Stop Demolitions! 

Our Homes, Not Profit!

Signed

Daniel Akande

Solidarity Network for Workers’ Rights (SNWR)