JAF BEGINS MOBILISATION FOR THE NEXT PHASE OF MASS ACTION!

Sunday, January 22nd 2012

PRESS STATEMENT

JAF BEGINS MOBILISATION FOR THE NEXT PHASE OF MASS ACTION!

THE STRUGGLE FOR REVERSAL OF FUEL PRICE TO N65 MUST CONTINUE!!

SYSTEM CHANGE IS OUR GOAL!!!

1.    The Joint Action Front (JAF) - the pro-labour civil society partner of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)and Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO) held series of MASS MEETINGS between January 17th and 21st 2012 across the country with professional groups and working people in the informal sectors who participated actively in the Indefinite Strike/Mass Action of January 9th – 16th to review the suspension of the Strike/Mass Action and the resort to state repression of dissenting voices by the Federal Government, which has further deepened the general state of insecurity in the country.

2.    The MASS MEETINGS resolved to commend Nigerians for total compliance with the STRIKE/MASS ACTION directives by the NLC, TUC and JAF and their patriotic resistance in the streets to the cruel hike in the prices of petroleum products. While JAF acknowledges that some gains have been made in the 10-Day struggle, in particular, the WILL of the People that compelled the Federal Government and its collaborators of Governors, Marketers and Profiteers to RETREAT from their arrogant and contemptuous stance that “there is no going back on the N141”; the meetings rejected the unilateral imposition of N97 and decided that the struggle for TOTAL REVERSAL of the price of petrol to N65 must continue.

Mass Meeting held on Jan 17, 2012

3.    JAF notes that the resort to militarisation of protest venues across the country and the brutalisation of legitimate protests demanding the disbandment of the militarily occupied spaces by the Jonathan Presidency has further exposed the regime as tyrannical, anti-poor, insensitive and desperate for survival. We must add that the rights of Nigerians to freely associate and peacefully protest is guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution, and as JAF we had and will never seek for the permission of the Federal Government or any of its agents to express our free will against an unjust order. Therefore, JAF urges all Nigerians to commence mobilisation and form ACTION COMMITTEES in the workplaces, schools, neighbourhoods, social spaces, town associations and worship centres for the next phase of protest rallies and mass action in order to ensure not only the REVERSAL to N65 but a struggle to rid Nigeria of this class of looters and profiteers.

4.    JAF wishes to re-state that the irresponsibility and failure by Governments (Federal, State and Local) to address the basic needs and aspirations of the majority Nigerians, the use of ethnic divisiveness by the Federal Government and its resort to State violence and militarisation, the continuing general state of insecurity of life and property and the Federal Government’s ineptitude to the spate of bombings, the growing rate of millions of unemployed, and the running of Government on bad economic and failed policies of privatisation and deregulation derived from the IMF and World Bank are sufficient grounds for Nigerians to struggle for SYSTEM CHANGE.

5.    The Federal Government and its front of looters and profiteers threatening Nigerians that desire to struggle for SYSTEM CHANGE with TREASON should be told that the Constitution of the US, whose model of “democracy” it glorifies, provide “ … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends (rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness), it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”. Thus, JAF urges Nigerians to rally around the struggle for SYSTEM CHANGE, which is essentially about ensuring a POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ORDER that will end the era of Privatisation, Deregulation, looting and exploitation by the corrupt capitalist ruling cabals and ensure that wealth of the country is judiciously applied to benefit the majority working population (formal and
informal sectors) and the poor.

6.    The new phase of the struggle for the REVERSAL to N65 and SYTEM CHANGE begins today (Sunday, January 22, 2012) with the launching of the Alimosho Chapter of JAF @ 4pm Egbeda Freedom Square, Egbeda Roundabout, Alimosho LGA.

7.    Also, JAF has scheduled for hold a 3-DAY NATIONAL POLITICAL MEMORIAL for the martyrs of the struggle for the Reversal to N65 in select cities in the country in the next 2 weeks.

Dare to Struggle, Dare To Win, Aluta Continua!

COMRADE ABIODUN AREMU
      JAF Secretary