Dear comrades, the Socialist Workers & Youth League (SWL) here in Nigeria salutes you in the finest traditions of international working-class solidarity, which defines May Day. Our organisation, like yours, stands and fights to deepen working-people’s class consciousness and organisation, contributing to building workers’ power, with the realisation that socialism is, and can be built only as the self-emancipation of the working-class.
We have closely studied the rich history of Lalit – how you have built Lalit which has served as a genuine beacon of struggle for the working-class in Mauritius for almost half a century. We hold your party in high esteem for your ceaseless efforts and unalloyed commitment to struggle for revolution from below.
SWL is a relatively younger organisation. We were formed on 29 January 2011 with the merger of two revolutionary organisations; the Socialist League of Nigeria, which has roots that go back to the early 1980s and the old Socialist Workers Movement which emerged from the May 1989 anti-SAP revolts.
We have built the League into, probably the largest far left group in Nigeria and definitely the most influential within the working-class. And our newspaper, the Socialist Worker has a wide circulation in the working-class and radical youth movements. In recent times, this has also b
We play leading roles in the three broad coalitions that the left is splintered into; the United Action for Democracy (UAD), the Joint Action Front (JAF), and more recently the Coalition for Revolution (CORE). And several years back we rallied the left together under the short-lived banner of the All-Nigeria Socialist Alliance (ANSA). These efforts have been borne out of our realisation of the severe weaknesses of the left, numerically and in terms of material resources.
More importantly, we do not see ourselves as being a body apart from the working-class. On the left, we have been central to attempts at building a mass labour party. The trade union bureaucracy has however truncated these. Our orientation is to the rank and file worker – and we continue to build on this. We are also rooted in communities with youths fighting against; police brutality, gentrification with attendant demolition of poor people’s housing, epileptic power supply and crazy electricity bills as well as sundry other issues of concern to working-class communities.
Today, for example, we are mobilising hundreds from working-class communities to the official May Day celebrations of the trade unions, to demonstrate, as part of the Coalition for Revolution (CORE).
With our shared values and goal, as revolutionary socialists committed to enthroning the fullest of democracy from below, closer collaboration between Lalit and SWL would be beneficial for the struggles of working-class people in Africa and globally. Exchanging ideas and lessons from our experiences would be invaluable for developing our theories and strategies, in the spirit of solidarity which is at the heart of May Day to workers of all lands.
In this light, we will very much appreciate a solidarity message from Lalit to the 7th SWL Convention which is scheduled to take place on 25-26 May.
For now, we once again express our revolutionary felicitations to your as Lalit and SWL join workers across the world to commemorate May Day 2019.
In solidarity,
Central Committee of the SWL
