By TINA TIMOTHY

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) has commiserated with the victims of the Kaduna train attack but blamed the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government for the tragedy.

SPN, therefore, called the Labour Movement to declare a National Day of mourning and also protest against insecurity, government ineptitude and worsening living conditions.

The party made the call in a statement on Wednesday, March 30, 2022, which was signed by its Acting National Chairperson, Abiodun Bamigboye, and National Secretary, Chinedu Bosah.

The statement reads: “The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) condemns the tragic attack by terrorists on a Kaduna-bound train on Monday, March 28, 2022, and condoles with families of the victims, as well as the leadership and members of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), over the loss of their General Secretary, Comrade Musa Lawal Ozigi and their Kwara State Chairman, Comrade Akin Akinsola, during the tragic attack. We strongly believe that the nonchalance, cluelessness and absolute failure in all ramifications of the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC Government are once again responsible for this calamity, as well as many before it.

“According to emerging reports of the incident, some were killed, many were injured while several more are feared kidnapped when terrorists armed with explosives blew up the train track at Rigasa area of Kaduna state and opened fire on the train reportedly filled with about 970 passengers around 10pm on Monday, 28 March, 2022. We hereby demand an immediate compensation for the families of the dead and prompt and adequate care for the injured, as well as the immediate rescue of those who have been kidnapped.

“We urge the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), who also lost a member, Dr. Chinelo Megafu, to use the occasion of this tragedy to launch a national day of mourning and protest to demand from the Buhari government, an immediate end to the raging insecurity across the country or resign. Such a protest should also include demands on the collapse of power supply in the country, fuel price hike and scarcity, inflation, worsening living conditions and many other anti-poor policies.

“For us in the SPN, the Kaduna train tragedy demonstrates the bankruptcy and incapability of Nigeria’s corrupt and crooked capitalist ruling elite to safeguard the lives of the citizens, let alone guarantee for them any reasonable standard of living. Therefore, this urgently calls for the labour movement to rise to the occasion by organizing to fight for immediate improvement while also proffering a political alternative to wrest power from the capitalist locust in power. We dare to say that if the labour movement decides to act as spectators in the 2023 general elections instead of intervening through a mass working people’s political alternative to take political power, it cannot be ruled out that more of this kind of tragedy and even possibly, on a larger scale, will be the order of the day for the post-2023 period.

“The above is not an empty abstraction. According to a special report by the Kaduna state government, bandits were said to have killed more than 1,192 persons while abducting 3, 348 people in Kaduna state alone in the year 2021. Similarly, data compiled by the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) shows that at least 10,398 persons were killed across Nigeria from January 1 to December 31, 2021 while victims of kidnapping were no less than 5000. The fact is that at the moment, there are no parts of the country which are safe.

“Indeed, the fact that the ill-fated train had close to a thousand passengers onboard is indicative that many of them were fearful of travelling by road, especially the Abuja-Kaduna road which has become very unsafe, just like many other federal and state highways across the country where kidnappings for ransom, armed robbery and killings are regular occurrences.

“As we have always argued, the raging insecurity in Nigeria has deep social roots. Some of the factors responsible for these crises are the condition of mass poverty and wealth inequality, unemployment, failure of successive capitalist regimes to ensure harmonious development of all parts, climate change, divisive activities of competing factions of the ruling class and the unresolved National Question. Unfortunately, no member or section of the corrupt capitalist ruling elite has the solutions to these problems.

“Therefore, we call on the working class, trade union movement, students/youth movement, pro-masses organisations and left-parties to come together to work out a programme of action to begin the struggle, to demand improvement in living conditions while simultaneously building a mass workers' political alternative to overthrow the broken capitalist system of exploitation and corruption and replace it with a workers and poor people’s government, armed with socialist policies.”