OGUN STATE COUNCIL POLLS:

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, 8^th 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