WE CALL ON THE WORKING MASSES TO JOIN AND BUILD A GENUINE POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE TO ALL THE ANTI-POOR PARTIES
PRESS
STATEMENT
We of the Ogun State Chapter of the Socialist Party of
Nigeria(SPN) view the release of the election timetable by the Ogun State
Independent Electoral Commission into the Twenty(20)
Local Governments and 37(thirty
seven) Local Council Development Areas by the Ogun State Independent
Electoral Commission as a step long overdue. According to a media release
signed by Alhaja Risikat Iyabo Ogunfemi, the Chairperson of the Ogun State
Independent Electoral Commission, the local council elections are scheduled to
hold on Saturday, 8th
October, 2016. We of the Ogun
State SPN have been at the forefront of
the mass campaign for elections to be held into the local councils.
The Socialist Party of Nigeria is a party
formed in 2012 by genuine socialists, rank-and-file workers, artisans and
change-seeking youth as a party that expressly stands for a clear-cut programme
of wresting political power from the hands of the entire anti-poor ruling
elite. The main promoter of the Socialist Party of Nigeria, the Democratic Socialist Movement has a
long history of consistent intervention in the struggles of the workers’
movement, students’ movement and the community movement. It has stridently
called on the leadership of the labour movement to build a genuine mass working
people’s political alternative that can alter the current socio-economic
situation in favour of the working masses.
It initiated the Socialist Party of Nigeria to serve as a striking
example to the broader working people’s movement and campaign for the building
of a wider mass working people’s political alternative. Despite the fact that
the Socialist Party of Nigeria has met all requirements under the law to be
registered and has complied with further guidelines by the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) at the out-of-court settlement granted to INEC in
the pending suit challenging the non-registration of the SPN at the Federal
High Court in Abuja, INEC has refused and neglected to furnish the SPN with its
Certificate of Registration.
In Ogun
State, the Socialist Party of Nigeria through the Education Rights’ Campaign has supported the struggles of students
in different tertiary institutions in Ogun State (OOU, TASUED, TASCE, etc) against education commercialization. We
also participated through the Campaign
for Democratic and Workers’ Rights in the mass protests and struggles of
Ogun State workers for the payment of their unpaid salaries, earlier this
year.
We submit that the local council elections at
this period comes handy as a referendum on the anti-worker Ibikunle Amosun-led All Progressives’ Congress Ogun
State Government that has illegally refused to remit pension and dues deducted
from workers salaries . However, we are quick to warn that the array of similar
anti-poor political parties such as the People’s
Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Unity Party of Nigeria and
the Labour Party who are posturing as “alternatives” to the All
Progressives’ Congress in the forthcoming local council polls are as inherently
anti-worker and anti-masses as the APC.
We also call on the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) to oblige the Socialist Party of Nigeria its
Certificate of Registration as it has met
all requirements known to law and it is willing to participate in the
forthcoming local council polls in Ogun State as well as other elections across
the country. We call on workers, students, artisans, traders, okada riders,
tri-cycle(Maruwa) riders, unemployed people and young people seeking for a way
out of the long nightmare of the unjust exploitation under all the anti-poor
political parties to join the Socialist Party of Nigeria in Ogun State to build
a real and genuine political alternative that can wrest power and put the
enormous wealth of society into meeting the real needs of all - education,
jobs, social housing,etc-and not for the benefit of the few rich.
EKO
JOHN NICHOLAS
State Secretary
To JOIN the SPN in Ogun State: Contact 08022634850, 09097933015
