The Federation of Informal Workers of Nigeria (FIWON) on May 30th and 31st convened meetings of all demolished and threatened work-places and settlements. The meeting on 30th was with workers at demolished and threatened informal work-places, while the second day was on demolished and threatened informal settlements.
These meetings were long overdue. Socialist Worker had been clamouring since the Lagos State Government renewed its privatisations and subsequent tyrannical and illegal demolitions of mechanic villages; markets; and waste dumps; and informal settlements especially water fronts. There is a dire need to unite all the resistance against the grand theft of the lands and trades of the working masses.
The meetings uncovered several hidden atrocities by the land grabbing and forceful evictions that are going on in Lagos. Peoples’ resistances were also shared and resolutions adopted. A key point of the resolutions is to forge a joint committee of all demolished and threatened workplaces and settlements.
Lagos State Government, in conscious collaboration with land grabbers like Aliko Dangote; Oba Elegushi and some private land developers, has been stealing working peoples’ lands in Atiporomeh, Badia East, Makoko, Ilubirin, Maroko, Otodo-Gbame, and others. The Ambode – led government has also sold all the waste dumps in Lagos to just three private companies who are employing barbaric force to take over the dumps from those who have dedicated decades of their lives to developing them. Mechanic villages and markets that belong to traders and artisans are often grabbed illegally, without due consultation, employing the most brutal of forces.
Socialist Worker hails FIWON for convening these meetings. We will, as ever, be part of the massive implementations of the resolutions taken. We, as working-class people masses cannot continue to lose our labour and lands to the greedy hawks of this rotten capitalist system!
by Afolabi Yobo & Kunle WizemanAjayi
