Occupy and Reclaim Nigeria: The Rise of People Power in a (Divided) Petro-State

For over a week in January 2012, a General Strike and massive street protests left Nigeria almost ungovernable, as citizens of Africa’s largest oil exporter overwhelmingly expressed their rejection of hikes in the prices of consumer fuels. In solidarity rallies in Toronto, New York, London and other global cities, there was show of resolve to ‘reclaim Nigeria’ from the ruling elite and their international allies. How did ‘Occupy Nigeria’ express the strength of peoples’ power, amidst Islamist and Niger Delta insurgencies in the north and south?

Featuring: Omoyele Sowore, Nigerian pro-democracy activist and Publisher of SaharaReporters.com

Lead discussants: Pablo Idahosa, Asume Osuoka

Listen to this panel here

Occupy Nigeria and CAN

In this week's edition of African Perspectives we speak with Asume Osuoka who has been involved in the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria for many years. We speak to him about the recent mass protests and workers strike in Nigeria.

We then spoke with Farid Omar for an update on the African Nations Cup tournament so far (please note that the interview was conducted on Friday before the 3rd place and final matches)

We start of as we do every week with headlines from the continent.

Listen to headlines here
Listen to interview with Asume/Nigeria here
Listen to interview with Farid/CAN here

August 1 - Oil Exploitation in Nigeria

In this week's episode, we explored the impact of oil exploitation in Nigeria and the people's resistance to it. The world has been abuzz since April when a blow out from a well started gushing millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. However, since the inception of the oil industry in Nigeria, there has been no concern and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with the industry. We spoke with Asume Osuoka about the exploitation of oil corporations in Nigeria and we also spoke with Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin about community resistance to these oil companies, focusing especially on the organizing of women.

We also featured headlines from the continent: constitution in Kenya, extension of UNAMID mission in Darfur, Ugandan bombing arrests, African Union summit, racist kids in South Africa, and oil in Sudan.

To find out more about oil in Nigeria and resistance to it, check out Justice in Nigeria Now and sign a petition telling Exxon to clean its spills in Nigeria.

This episode featured the music of Seun Kuti and Tony Allen.

Listen to this episode here