Nationwide Protests For March 27 - JAF Declares

Mar. 24, 2014

SaharaReporters, New York

The Joint Action Front (JAF) has declared next Thursday, March 27, as a National Day for Mass Rally and National Mourning in solidarity with the over 50 million unemployed youth and graduates across Nigeria.

The event will kick off symbolically at the Nigeria Civil Service Union Alausa-Ikeja, Lagos at 9am, and will be held as a continuous exercise, and JAF called on Nigerians to arise to the challenge of system change, which it explained as the socialist transformation of the polity.

The group also recommended to Nigerians an Unemployment Charter. It urged the working people, oppressed classes, artisans, traders, professionals and all groups genuinely committed to the socio-economic transformation of Nigeria to join forces with the unemployed in an Unemployment Charter of Demands that would include:

Just compensation to the families of all the dead and injured applicants at the NIS interviews on March 15th;
Refund of the N1,000 levy collected from all the applicants and compensation for expenses incurred for the interviews;
Decent work and living wage for ALL; and
Unemployment benefits for ALL Unemployed.

Full text of the JAF press statement:

JAF Declares Nationwide MASS RALLY & MOURNING for the UNEMPLOYED on March 27th!

1. The Joint Action Front (JAF) rose from its organised Mass Meeting held on Sunday, March 23rd attended by its affiliates, members of the unemployed association of Nigeria and some civil society groups and reiterated its Declaration of Thursday, March 27th as a National Day for MASS RALLY AND National Mourning in solidarity with the more than 50 million unemployed youth and graduates across the country.

2. JAF’s position on the tragic incident of death of scores of applicants during the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) job recruitment exercises of March 15th 2014 is that, Governments at all levels (FG, State & local), irrespective of political parties, are culpable because they failed to provide decent jobs and enabling opportunities for gainful employments. They are all hooked to the anti-poor neo-liberal capitalist agenda. For instance, privatization of electricity with the attendant outage and high tariffs, and the outrageous taxes imposed by both state and local governments, have made LIFE very difficult for artisans and small business owners and some of them have been forced out of business. The same anti-poor agenda accounts for the ban of Okada/ Achaba by state governments who do not create alternative decent jobs for the youths and unemployed.

3. Equally, we wish to restate our position that it is possible to create massive jobs with living wage for all Nigerians, given the fact that many critical sectors like education, health care, agriculture, housing, infrastructure, etc are short of adequate personnel and require massive expansion to meet the growing needs of the population. The crisis of unemployment in Nigeria is such that the decadent capitalist economic agenda of successive regimes cannot resolve. It is only a socialist transformation of the Nigerian polity that can guarantee such massive jobs and employment creating opportunities that would make it possible for ALL Nigerians to have access to education, healthcare, housing, infrastructure, industrialisation, energy, social welfare, etc

4. The MASS RALLY, which kicks-off symbolically on Thursday, March 27th at the Nigeria Civil Service Union Alausa-Ikeja, Lagos at 9am should be a continuous exercise. It is our CLARION CALL to Nigerians to arise to the challenge of System Change; which to JAF means the socialist transformation of the polity.

5. Therefore, JAF calls on its Labour partners – Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress, the Unemployed and all pro-oppressed and working people groups across the country to mobilise and organise MASS RALLIES effective from March 27th kickoff to all the institutions of Governments at all levels (local, state and FG), including the State Houses of Assembly to demand Decent Jobs with Living Wage for All Unemployed Nigerians.

6. JAF wishes to recommend to Nigerians an UNEMPLOYMENT CHARTER. We urge the working people, oppressed classes, artisans, traders, professionals and all groups genuinely committed to the socio-economic transformation of Nigeria to join forces with the Unemployed to make the following Unemployment Charter of Demands:

· Just compensation to the families of all dead and injured applicants at the NIS interviews on March 15th; and Refund of the N1,000 collected from all the applicants and compensation for expenses incurred for the interviews.

· Decent Work and Living Wage for ALL.

· Unemployment Benefits for ALL Unemployed.

· Reversal of the IMF and World Bank policies of privatisation, deregulation, commercialisation, monetisation, outsourcing, bail-out of collapsed private banks and interests with public fund, foreign debt enslavement, etc.

· Government should have business in the socio-economic and welfare NEEDS of Nigerians.

· Public ownership and democratic control of the economy.

DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE TO WIN! FORWARD EVER, BACKWARD NEVER!!

Dr. Oladipo Fashina Comrade Abiodun Aremu

JAF Chairperson JAF Secretary