The Nigeria Labour Congress has rejected as mere accident the mishap that resulted in the death of a revolutionary leader and former General Secretary of Joint Action Front,Late Comrade Abiodun Aremu.
Aremu was killed on Sunday in a brutal hit-and-run accident in his neighbourhood in Ifo, Ogun State.
In a statement on Monday, Comrade Joe Ajaero, President of NLC, said the circumstances of his death, a so-called hit-and-run, reek of a sinister pattern, reminiscent of the suspicious death of another Comrade, Patrick Naagbanton.
He demanded an immediate, transparent, and thorough investigation by the Federal and state Governments into this heinous act.
He said:” We cannot, and will not, accept this as a mere accident. The Nigerian state must dispel the foul odour surrounding his death by apprehending the perpetrator and revealing the full truth. The working class deserves answers.
“As we mourn this colossal loss, we call on all comrades, allies, and all Nigerians who yearn for a better world to converge on Ifo, Ogun State, on Thursday the 23rd of October, to collectively give our beloved General a befitting, ideological burial.
“The greatest tribute we can pay to this fearless teacher is to immortalize him not just in tears, but in action. We must recommit to the ideals he lived and died for: the relentless struggle against exploitation, the ideological clarity of the left, and the building of a mass movement capable of acquiring power for the people. We also enjoin all to remember and support the family he has left behind, who shared him with the struggle.
“Comrade Abiodun Aremu has joined the pantheon of revolutionary ancestors. His body has fallen, but his ideas and zeal are invincible. Nigerian masses will miss him! Nigerian workers will remember him! NLC mourns his exit! Who will join us at the barricades! Let the Cadre arise and bear aloft the flag of passionate struggle which he embodied.”
Mourning the Late Comrade Aremu,Ajaero said he was a titan of the class struggle, an organic intellectual of the working people, and an unwavering internationalist whose life was a testament to unalloyed commitment to the cause of the oppressed.
According to him, Aremu’s entire political life was a seamless fusion of revolutionary theory and concrete praxis, dedicated to the emancipation of the working class and the construction of an egalitarian, socialist society.
He said as a key architect of the Labour Civil Society Coalition (LASCO) and other vital platforms such as Joint Action Front (JAF), Comrade Aremu played an indispensable role in forging the unity between the organized working class and the broader popular masses.
He added:”He understood that the chains of the Nigerian people could only be broken through a united front against the exploitative capitalist system. He was a true workers’ General who never wavered, never compromised, and never retreated.
“Recognizing that the battle for the future is a battle for the minds of the youth, he founded the Amilcar Cabral Institute of Ideological Studies (ACIS). This school was his ideological gift to the movement, a crucial apparatus for conscientizing a new generation of revolutionaries, arming them with the tools of scientific socialism and the spirit of internationalist solidarity, as seen in his leadership of the Nigeria Movement for the Liberation of Western Sahara and the Nigerian Movement of Solidarity with Cuba.”
