Comment & analysis
Nigeria's solution is not in the ballot box
Kola Ibrahim
2007-05-03, Issue 302
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/41150
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Kola Ibrahim argues that the solution to Nigeria’s hydra-headed socio-political problems lies not with the ballot box but rather with grassroots-led social and political movments from the urban and rural masses.
The contemporary histories of Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Greece and Ukraine have shown that it is independent political actions of the masses that can change the society.
The outcome of the Nigerian elections held in April 2007 have shown that the solution to Nigeria's hydra-headed socio-political problems can only be achieved if the mass of the working people of Nigeria take destiny into their hands and exercise political movement as a counterweight to bourgeois corrupt politics. Politicians cannot be relied upon to resolve the sufferings of the Nigerian working people.
To begin with, the clash within the rank of the ruling elite, especially that between president Obasanjo and his vice Atiku Abubakar, was never based on how to better the lot of the masses, who have been made to swallow the poisonous pills of neo-liberal capitalist economic policies over the past eight years.
In fact, instead, the cause of the rancour between the two is the question of succession. While Atiku claimed to have conceded power to Obasanjo in 2003 so as to regain it in 2007, the Obasanjo camp sees no reason why Atiku, who has served two terms in the presidency, should be 'criminalising’ Obasanjo for going for a third term in office.
The masses were presented with two sides of the same corrupt political arrangement and no genuine alternative. Both the president and his vice have acted together to implement the anti-poor, pro-rich policies of neo-liberalism. Atiku was the chairman of National Council on Privatization (NCP), which oversaw the privatisation of several government corporations and parastatals. Social service provisions were either commercialised or partly privatised. Meantime the masses were made the scapegoats of age-long corruption and mismanagement by the ruling elite via retrenchment, unemployment, unpaid entitlements, including pensions, and inflation.
The president demonstrated that if the nation he rules over could not manage its tertiary education, he could do better. The children of the poor masses who want a good education were told to either a pay Naira500,000 at Bells University's bursary or go to hell. At the same time, hundreds of acres of state farmlands were bought over by the president - or the Obasanjo Library. Followers boast of juicy packages which they try to protect as much as possible.
And whereas the so-called opposition wanted to present itself as an alternative, the past let them down. Nigerians forget the spree of retrenchment of the former AD southwest governments of the likes of Bola Tinubu in Lagos and Bisi Akande in Osun. All opposition groups bow before the almighty neo-liberal economic pills as advocated multilateral agencies of imperialist capitalism – IMF, World Bank and WTO.
Political action could not take into cognisance the plight of the poor people. In an absence of genuine alternatives, the best it could do was to use people's plight to justify their quest for power. This explains why none of them could give reasons for supporting or participating in policies that have deprived the majority. Even Obasanjo has conceded that all those who antagonise his ‘reforms’ could not provide alternatives because they all stand for the same policies.
This situation is underlined in a letter Atiku Abubakar wrote to Obasanjo in early 2006. He stated his intention to run for the presidency and praised Obasanjo for his economic reforms: retrenchment, denied entitlements, decrepit social services, looting via privatization. He promised to continue the same policies.
Neither Atiku nor the so-called opposition have suggested any alternative to neo-liberalism and market economies, rejected by the working people. Ruling class politics of survival of the fittest substitutes for radical political actions of the masses; and the masses taking the political road is feared.
Of course any concession to allow the masses to take independent political action through formation of a working people's party would lead to the diversion of the resources of the country to pro-poor policies: free education, health care, adequate salaries and pension, secure job opportunities and better infrastructures. As these could only be achieved by the stopping corruption and privatisation of national wealth, they would spell doom for corrupt ambitions.
Therefore, the ruling politicians and their estranged counterparts in the so-called opposition - which some elements of the media has wrongly tagged progressives - continue their ruinous politics. These same estranged politicians participated actively in the electoral fraud of 1999 and 2003. Many of them played major roles during the dark days of military absolutism. For instance, Obasanjo was the first head of state to plunge Nigeria to the abyss of debt and economic dislocation. Atiku was head of customs and excise, which was fraught with corruption. The masses, meanwhile, are cajoled with such hollow terms as the rule of law and respect of electoral wishes. But to expect these individuals to genuinely involve working peoples in the political process is an illusion.
The election outcome clearly indicates the futility of relying on any section of the ruling class for a political breakthrough for the people of Nigeria. While the estranged ruling class tried to use mass pressure to force the main ruling PDP party to concede to some of their demands, the ruling class maximised the constitutional flaws and illegitimate rights to authority through for example control of the INEC, the armed forces and part of the judiciary to ensure they did not lose power. Although the majority of voters were disenfranchised by the political machine of the ruling PDP through rigging and violence, the estranged opposition could not mobilise the masses to come and vote.
It is foolhardy for anyone claiming to be from a left-wing background to believe that any political gain can come by the people attaching themselves to the estranged section of the ruling class without undertaking independent, democratic, mass-based and radical political activities.
Many so-called civil society organisations - many of which derive their grants from the imperialist agencies in the West on the basis of maintaining the status quo - continue to be lethargic; instead of seeking to build a political platform of the working people of Nigeria that will seek to dismantle the stranglehold of the capitalist ruling class on our economic and political lives.
It is important to draw out lessons from last week’s farcical general election for the working masses.
First, given the present constitutional and political arrangements, the corrupt capitalist ruling class will continue to recycle itself in power, irrespective of mass opposition.
Secondly, confining the masses within a neoliberal economic framework will continue to deprive the masses of the political will to undertake independent political action.
Thirdly, in order to breakthrough this quagmire, the masses must build a fighting political alternative that is economically and politically different from corrupt opposition politics, and democratically organised from the grassroots to the national level.
Fourthly, it is erroneous for the leaders of working class organisations to believe that by confining themselves to so-called civil or legal means, that they can assume political control. Only by taking to the streets, along with other mass political actions, can they force the ruling class to abdicate power. And political alternatives must be linked to the daily struggles of the masses for democratic rights, including the right to free and fair elections.
For these reasons, mass organisations and their leaders must reject last week’s nonsensical general elections. They must immediately call for the reconstitution of the electoral body, a re-run of all elections, and convocation of a Sovereign National Conference. This should draw its membership democratically from mass organisations: trade unions, market men and women associations, student movements, civil societies and ethnic nationalities, which shall reconstitute the political and economic agenda of the country.
And this must not mean supporting other corrupt politicians. Rather it is a step towards building a mass struggle that will culminate in the reconstitution of the country in favour of the working masses.
Civil society organisations and social movements must come together and call the people to the street to take their destiny in their own hands. They must convoke a general summit of all pro-working peoples organisations, to be spear-headed by the trade unions, with the aim of forming a working people's party that will serve the interest of the masses.
I propose a week of political protests around the country to include mass processions, leafleting, rallies and mass meetings as soon as possible. The masses must fight for a democratic socialist Nigeria, where the resources of the country are used not in the interests of the already rich few, but in the welfare interests of the masses.
* Kola Ibrahim is a student activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, email: kmarx4live@yahoo.com
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org
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