The Nigerian secret security service, which is popularly known as Department of State Services (DSS) has rearrested Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye some hours ago. This is the ninth arrests and detention of Abiodun Bamigboye by DSS and Police since January 21 when he was first arrested and detained by the DSS. After several arrest and detention by the Police, he was charged to court on June 7, 2019, by the Oyo State Commissioner of Police on trumped-up four-count charges at the Magistrate Court and was granted bail. Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye is the Acting National Chairperson of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and his arrest is linked to his role of the struggle against anti-labour practices and indecent work at Sumal Foods Ltd. Several Sumal Foods Ltd workers have been intimidated and sacked for supporting the struggles against the management. The recent arrest shows that the DSS and the Police have been illegally monitoring the movement and phone conversations of Abiodun Bamigboye as his life is under threat. Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) condemns these attacks, harassment and intimidation.
It is crystal clear that these incessant arrests, detentions, harassment, intimidation of Abiodun Bamigboye is being coordinated by Sumal Foods owners/management, the leaders of the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE), Nigeria Police Force, Department of State Services (DSS) and the federal government. The Buhari-led government has failed to use the Ministry of Labour and Productivity to protect the rights and interest of Nigerian workers as expected and is now using security apparatus that are funded by taxpayers (Nigerian workers inclusive) to harass leaders of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) for their principled intervention on the plights of the working masses. These arrests, harassment and intimidation is part of the holistic policy of witch-hunt of journalists and activists by the Buhari-led government as a means of repressing any form of dissent aimed at preserving the unfair capitalist exploitative order considering the fact that several activists and journalist are unjustifiably languishing in different jails across the country. This is obviously how the apparatus of the bourgeois state is used to defend the parochial interest of big business and a privileged few at the expense of the working masses.
The background of the matter is the fact that contract workers at Sumal Foods Ltd at Ibadan in Oyo State who were about 15,000 in number went on strike on October 2, 2018, to protest their deplorable and poor working conditions. For instance, many workers have been working as contract staff for over a decade, earning a paltry sum of N800 per day before the strike action and currently N1200 daily; contract workers are not entitled to break or rest intervals in violation of the Labour Act; contract workers are sacked arbitrarily; contract workers are not entitled to sick leave or annual leave and when a worker is absent from work for two days in a month over ill health, the worker gets sacked automatically, there are no entitlements for workers etc. It was these highlighted terrible working conditions and many more that provoked the strike action wherein Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye who is also the Oyo State Coordinator of the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) only intervened to give solidarity to the suffering Sumal Foods workers.
We want to publicly state that this persecution by the Buhari-led federal government, Police, DSS, Sumal Foods Ltd Management and the Union (NUFBTE) can never deter members of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) from intervening in struggles of workers anywhere in the country for decent working conditions.
The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) demands that the DSS should immediately and unconditionally release Abiodun Bamigboye. SPN also demands that the Oyo State Commissioner of Police should also drop all the trumped-up charges against Abiodun Bamigboye. SPN also demanding for the reinstatement of all sacked and victimised workers of Sumal Foods Ltd.
Chinedu Bosah
National Secretary
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