As we
write, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released a
time-table putting 2015 general elections on 15 February next year.
This
election will be taking place against the background of colossal failure of the
economic, political and social policies of all the ruling capitalist parties,
at both federal and state levels: to meet the needs and aspirations of the vast
majority of Nigerians. Now there is the new threat that the sudden fall in the
price of oil will, given the country’s dependence on oil exports, mean a rapid
worsening of the economic and social situation.
Consequently,
the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) calls on workers and the trade unions,
urban dwellers, peasant farmers, market women, youth and students, civil
society and socialist activists, etc., to begin in earnest, even at this late
stage, the task of creating a genuine working class political party that will,
starting from the 2015 general elections, field candidates to wrest power from
all the ruling capitalist parties.
The current
unprincipled scrambling and merry-go-round of opportunist politicians jumping
from one party to another in the hope of pursuing their careers shows, once
again, that they do not offer anything substantial to working people. This NLC
is right to call for action against those National Assembly members who voted to
undermine the minimum wage, but this cannot be done by voting APC against PDP
members or voting PDP against APC members. What is needed is for Labour and the
poor to have their own voice.
Labour Party
But working
class and youth activists striving to build an independent political platform
and programme that can best defend/represent the socio-economic and political
needs and aspirations of the vast majority of Nigerians must first and foremost
know that, unfortunately, the current Labour Party was never formed to provide
an independent political platform for the exploited, oppressed and downtrodden.
The current
Labour Party was formed, in 2002, by a section of the trade union leadership
and was registered with the name “Party for Social Democracy”. The party was
never created to provide an ideological or programmatic frame through which the
mass misery of the majority, in the face of stupendous human and natural
abundance, can be permanently ended. On the contrary, the party was built
largely on the utopian idea that the socio-economic and political interest of
the working people and the poor can be harmonised/ reconciled with those of
their rulers and exploiters. However in 2004 the NLC, under the leadership of
Adams Oshiomhole, for the first time decided to adopt the party as its own
political platform.As Oshiomhole then told the BBC the NLC “would back the
newly renamed opposition Labour Party. He said that was the only way the unions
could fight for workers' rights.” (BBC News, March1, 2004).
However,
beyond renaming the party as the Labour Party, nothing essentially changed from
the programme and method of the “Party for Social Democracy”. Just as before,
notwithstanding the fact that the Labour Party has now been officially adopted
by the NLC leadership, the party remains overwhelmingly populated not by
workers and the poor but by political jobbers and position seekers. This is so
because the Labour Party has refused to articulate programmes and activities
that can improve the living standard of the masses and their political
liberation. Instead of mobilising labour and youth activists to take conscious
steps to build the party, studious efforts were permanently directed at wooing
failed politicians from the big capitalist parties to take leadership of the
party.It is not in any way accidental that the Labour Party’s own internal
election process is completely monetised, the Party operates like the looting
parties.
The Exit of Governor Mimiko
The
recent defection of Olusegun Mimiko the only governor elected on the platform
of the party to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has only brutally exposed
the political error and opportunism of seeking to build the party with elements
rejected or those unable to actualize their personal political ambitions within
big bourgeois parties. Apart from Mimiko, the list of the anti-poor politicians
that have used the party to contest but later dumped include Femi Pedro, former
Lagos deputy governor Andy Ubah, a former aid of Obasanjo now back to the PDP
as a Senator, Ayodele Fayose, Ekiti State governor etc. However, from among those
that have dumped the party it is only Mimiko that won election on its platform.
Meanwhile
the NLC and TUC leaders, in the wake of Mimiko’s defection, have been giving
statements and impression that they were unhappy with the defection. In
consequence they had called for the postponement of the Labour Party’s Mimiko
backed convention which held on 11 October, 2014. The NLC leadership in
addition hurriedly called a meeting of selected “stakeholders” where a call was
made on trade union members of the party to ensure the postponement of the
convention which held in Akure, Ondo state. The leadership of the Labour Party
fired back to state that the two trade union federation (NLC and TUC, the true
owners of the party) had only three slots which were gratuitously given to the
trade unions and that even the unions had never taken necessary steps to
process these allotted seats. Most significantly, the NLC and TUC leaders
totally failed, throughout their face-off with the leadership of the Labour Party,
to outline any political differences or unfold any concrete measures to be
taken to build the Labour Party of their dreams if their ultimatum that the
convention should be postponed is ignored.
As we
write it is over three weeks after the Labour has held its convention yet none
of the labour and pro-labour elements that
called for the postponement of the convention has made any public
reaction to those development or outline steps being contemplated to build a
true working peoples political platform.In fact, given that INEC seems to have
no objection to the Labour Party’s Akure convention, it means that pro-PDP
elements are in control of the Party and it will most likely, as in 2011,
support Jonathan in next February’s presidential election. This poses very
sharply the question of what initiative Labour should immediately take.
Working class, Socialist Alternative
Genuine
working class activists and socialists must note that the absence of a follow-up
step to build a true alternative working peoples’ political is the logical
consequence of the abandonment, by most contemporary trade unionists, of the
steadfast defence of the working masses interests against employers of labour
and governance in the interest of imperialism and capitalism. Trade union leaders
that are incapable of defending and protecting the economic and trade union
rights of their members cannot be suddenly expected to have political
understanding and energy to build a vibrant independent working class political
party against the capitalist forces with which they have struck an apparent strategicpartnership.
For those who want labour to have its own voice, whether they be rank and file
members or hold positions, there is a need to act now. The Labour Party’s
takeover by pro-PDP elements means that discussion of the next step has gone
beyond debating whetherto still try to reclaim the Labour Party or to begin to
build a new workers party.
For
genuine socialists who have ceaselessly over the years being on the forefront
of propaganda and agitation for a trade union based or a true mass political
party of the working people, the task posed by the recent developments over the
issue of the Labour Party requires a more profound and sobering response than which
can be given by pro-capitalist trade/labour leaders and mere socialist
commentators.
Therefore,
in order to ensure that this exercise does not end in futility like similar
efforts in the past, we hereby reproduce a few general points on the programme,
strategy and tactics to grow a vibrant working class led political alternative
stated in the July/August, 2001 edition of the Socialist Democracy, organ of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM).
“(a)
Anti-Capitalist Orientation
If the
proposed political party is to be radically different from the existing
registered parties, it must have a clearly anti-capitalist/imperialist
programme and outlook to say the least. Without this kind of outlook, such a
party if voted to power will be compelled to implement anti-poor, capitalist
measures of privatization, liberalization, commercialization, devaluation, mass
retrenchment, etc. just as Fredrick Chiluba's Zambia.
In
Zambia, as a result of the pro-democracy wave that swept the continent in the
1990s, Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) headed by Frederick Chiluba, a
former leader of the Zambian trade union federation, was in October 1991
elected into office to replace Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence
Party (UNIP) which had ruled the country since independence in 1964.
Tragically, the Chiluba government, despite initial popular support, confined
itself within the framework of capitalism. Therefore, it was compelled to
implement IMF/World Ban neo-liberal policies of deregulation, privatization and
commercialization. The result has been mass retrenchment, cuts in social
spending and growing mass poverty.
Under the
grinding drive of imperialism and finance capital especially the prevailing
rapacious drive to colonise the world working masses and resources under the
guise of globalization, it is utopia to have a conception of a functional and
rational capitalism in any given country whether in the developed or
underdeveloped world.
In 1986,
the Babangida military junta set up a political commission headed by Professor
Cookey. The primary assignment of that commission was to ascertain the
political ideology under which Nigerians would like to be governed in post-
military era. The unequivocal answer (but which was understandably very
unpalatable to the junta) of most mass organisations including the then NLC was
socialism. In our view, the conclusion drawn by the then NLC leadership on the
ideological socialist orientation needed to guarantee the needs and aspirations
of the working masses are ever more relevant today than when it was first made.
Therefore,
if the proposed party is not just to be a party of labour in name but that of
the bourgeois in real life, just as the New Labour Party in Britain is, then an
anti-capitalist, internationalist socialist ideology is an imperative for the
proposed formation.
(b)
Membership Base and Focus
To become
a viable political Platform a truly working class or labour based party must be
able to attract and organise in its ranks, members of the other oppressed
segments of the capitalist society such as the youths, artisans, poor peasants,
rank and file members of the armed forces, house wives, etc. Needless to
stress, this kind of party will not be formed solely for the purpose of
scrambling for elective or appointive posts. In and out of office, it must be a
party that is always prepared to identity with the struggle of the masses in
all walks of life either through implementation of measures favourable to their
interests or the support of struggles towards that end.
The
proposed party for instance must be seen to identify with the on-going
struggles against mass retrenchment and victimization of labour activists
across the country, particularly in states like Osun, Oyo and Lagos states.
Fighting the renewed anti-union drives of governments and private employers of
labour for instance, the Guardian, First Bank Plc and Carnaud Metal Box Nigeria
Plc, etc. should be top on the list of priority of the proposed party.
The
reasoning behind the above orientation is this. A truly labour or working class
party will any day provoke the worst hatred of the bourgeois and all layers of
the conservative sections of the society. Also, a truly working class party
will never be able to match the spending power of a bourgeois party in election
campaigns. But if a party is well rooted amongst the masses as a result of its
policies and activities, all the usual lies and propaganda normally dished out
by bourgeois parties can be easily punctuated and neutralised at affordable
cost.
Of
course, there is no need to emphasize that the degree of enthusiastic support,
which the proposed formation will enjoy amongst the masses, will proportionally
correlate to its orientation and activities amongst the masses.
(c)
Democratic Structures
If the
proposed formation is to be a truly labour or working class party, then
conscious effort will have to be made, right from the beginning that the
affairs of the party is scrupulously democratic. This amongst other things will
mean that decisions on major political issues like that of party's ideology, tactics
and strategy, etc are not rushed but rather subjected to as much widespread and
critical evaluation as possible internally before final decisions are made.
This to
us will be a very effective way of avoiding the ruinous experience of the past
where party policies only reflect the whims and caprices of party leaders. For
instance, the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Party (NLP) in 1989 foisted on
the party a bourgeois. programme under the guise of playing "politics of
registration" i.e. politics that will be acceptable to powers that be so
that the party can secure license to contest elections. While of course this
unprincipled approach failed to achieve its goal, it achieved the tragic goal
of killing the initial mass enthusiasm that heralded the birth of the NLP.
A
formidable mass working class or labour party can only be built in the
prevailing socio-economic relations which operate in Nigeria by an approach
which guarantees down-to-top, rank and file democratic control of all political
and administrative conducts and decisions of party officials (elected or
appointed) as opposed to the prevailing bourgeois top-to-down method. The
latter method kills; only the former approach offers a prospect of a healthy
living for the organism.
All party
officials at all levels must be democratically elected by the membership and
subject to recall at any point in time if found wanting. Also, to forestall
corruption and careerism which is characteristic of capitalist parties and
politicians, officers and elected representatives of the party must be made to
live on the average wage of a skilled worker, donating any excess income to the
labour movement. This measure will in addition, make the party representatives
to live close to the reality of the-working people whose interests they' were
elected to represent.”
If the present issue of building a genuine working
masses political alternative party is to go beyond mere talks, the Socialist
Party of Nigeria (SPN) calls on the leadership of both the NLC and the TUC to
immediately commence steps to convoke a special conference of all working class
activists, youths and socialists within and outside the organised trade unions
with a view to agree on programmes and organisational and political methods of
building a working peoples political party that can begin the process of
dislodging the capitalist politicians from power starting from the 2015 general
elections. The kind of conference being advocated must be an all embracing affair
of all genuine pro-labour forces beyond the hurried and selective exercise
recently conducted by the Political Commission of the NLC.
Without this the voice of working people and the
poor will once again be absent and the elections will be dominated by rival
cliques competing to get into positions from which they can simply loot. But
even if Labour’s voice is silent in the elections, it must not give up on the
struggle both to improve life now and to fundamentally change society.
Segun
Sango
National Chairperson
Socialist Party of Nigeria
