A recent crackdown on doctors in Nigeria is symptomatic of a wider state attack on the working class.

The Nigerian constitution and laws disadvantage the poor in terms of setting up their own parties to champion issues that are of interest to them. Any talk of electoral reform that does not address this matter will still leave the country’s politics firmly in the hands of the capitalist class.

Education in Nigeria is in crisis following years of underfunding. And private universities that have mushroomed to meet the growing need for higher education have become so commercialised many of them are no better than glorified high schools.

Fiercely critical of the Nigerian political and business classes' perpetual money-grabbing and disenfranchising of ordinary Nigerians, Kola Ibrahim makes the case for Nigeria's Labour Party to develop into a 'mega-party' representative of the country's majority.

Efforts to portray Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan as a positive alternative to Umaru Yar'Adua are strongly misplaced, writes Kola Ibrahim. While the current power tussle and political crisis have granted a range of players the opportunity to 'loot the nation blind', Ibrahim contends, the inclination of labour movement leaders to cuddle up to Jonathan in a mutually profitable alliance is deeply treacherous to the working people they purport to represent.

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Lamido Sanusi's financial reform, writes Kola Ibrahim, will do nothing more than re-assert the dominance of a rapacious capitalist class in Nigeria. While public ownership of services rooted in the welfare of Nigeria's people remains most desirable, Ibrahim contends, Sanusi and his ilk can be counted on to simply support the entrenched political class.

With Nigeria's ruling elites seemingly intent on continuing to rob their country blind, Kola Ibrahim stresses the need for a nationalised economy rooted in a genuine workers' democracy.

If anything is to be deduced from the current face-off between the Yar’Adua government and striking staff unions of tertiary institutions: Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Union (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), it is that the ruling class in Nigeria is incurably politically treacherous and intellectually backward.