The Socialist Workers’ League demands the immediate and unconditional release of Zainab Sodiq. Her arrest in the first place was highly farcical and indefensible. This is a continuation of the barrage of attacks that the State Security Service (SSS) and other state apparatus of repression in Nigeria have launched against Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC). Behind these attacks lies the ruling class’s fear of the revolutionary alternative that the AAC represents for the Nigerian people.
The Nigeria Constitution and other international statutes particularly Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are clear on the Freedom of the Press as a fundamental right. However, the Bola Tinubu-led APC regime has since launched a campaign to curtail this freedom ahead of the 2027 general elections. Journalists perform an essential public function by gathering, documenting, and disseminating information in the public interest especially in polity where the greed of the 1% overrides the 99% of us.
Zainab Sodiq is a journalist. She has committed no crime. Her arrest is totally unacceptable. It is a violation of the fundamental human rights stipulated in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.
Moments like this underscore the need for sober reflection on the conditions necessary for constitutional rule. It also underscores the limitations of a “democracy”rooted in the politics and governance framework where a handful of people, the class of oppressors, are the ones who rule and not the working masses themselves. Enthroning justice, accountability, and fundamental freedoms remains inseparable from the collective liberatory struggle of the mass of working people.
We cannot continue like this. Sodiq is a journalist. We therefore call on the NUJ to boldly raise its voice against her unjust and entirely unwarranted detention.
We also call on working-class organizations, including trade unions, pro-labor and other civil society organizations, and all well-meaning Nigerians and civic groups to demand the release of Zainab Sodiq and to call for an end to the wave of law-fare that the Nigerian state is waging against Omoyele Sowore.
Kelvin AYEMHENRE
National Chairperson
Lekan SONEYE
Deputy National Secretary
