PERENNIAL FUEL SCARCITY AS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS UNABLE TO GUARANTEE SUPPLY

SPN DEMANDS NATIONALIZATION AND DEMOCRATIC MANAGEMENT OF THE OIL INDUSTRY AS THE WAY OUT OF THIS QUAGMIRE 

PRESS STATEMENT   (231217)

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) condemns the federal government and the oil marketers/tycoons for failing to guarantee adequate supply of fuel and thereby causing untold hardship for the vast majority of Nigerians.

We place the blame of this fuel scarcity at the doorstep of the Buhari/APC capitalist government whose lame duck neo-liberal policies of the past two years are what have ensured that the oil industry and, together with it the fate of Nigerians, continue to be at the mercy of oil tycoons and other vested profit-first interest.

Instead of undoing the failed neo-liberal policies of the past PDP governments, the Buhari government has spent most of the last two years deepening them. For instance, instead of rapidly refurbishing old refineries and building new ones, the Buhari government relinquished this responsibility to Aliko Dangote – a rich business tycoon who has demonstrated with his cement business that profit is his only goal. The consequence of this disastrous policy is what we are seeing at the moment.

We challenge the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the United Labour Congress (ULC) to act fast to save the working and toiling people from the agony they are going through at the moment. We demand emergency meetings of the organs of the labour centres with a view to discuss how the labour movement should respond to this crisis including setting up "workers and community action committees" to move round petrol stations to tackle hoarding and enforce sale of fuel at official prices as well as mobilization for warning strikes and mass protests across the country. The labour movement will have to embark on mass actions to force government to ensure adequate supply of petroleum products. Also labour must make it clear that any planned hike in fuel price would be resisted with mass struggle.

Nigerians must remember that the Buhari government while increasing fuel price from N86.50k to N145 in May 2016 had not only claimed that this measure would drive down the price at some point, it had also promised that it would resolve all crisis of supply and distribution. Now what we are experiencing today is completely different with petroleum products selling at N200 per litre and above.

Also importantly, to end the perennial fuel scarcity, labour and pro-working masses organizations must demand the immediate repair of old refineries and building of new ones by the government. Besides, we must not allow an arrangement where the working people and nation's economy will be at the mercy of Dangote who when his refinery is in operation may decide to go on a boss's strike and strangulate the economy at will in order to impose any price on petroleum products.

Fuel scarcity has lingered on for almost one month now and there seems not to be an end in sight. This scarcity has caused great hardship for Nigerians, disrupting the yuletide season while also making movement/transportation much more expensive and difficult.

This perennial scarcity is mindboggling considering the fact that Nigeria is the 12th biggest crude oil producer and the 8th biggest exporter of crude oil in the world but imports most of the refined petroleum products because of lack of refining infrastructure. It is just like a fish in the ocean but still thirsty! For some time now, government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been importing virtually all refined petroleum products but has largely abandoned storage and distribution to private profiteers who sometimes embark on bosses' strikes and sabotage. This arrangement has been left intact because the ruling class both in government and business are in an unholy alliance to rob the working masses and the poor. Hence, the masses are at the mercy of greedy top public officials, government representatives and their private business collaborators. Though, NNPC is a public agency, it is bedeviled with bureaucracy and corruption such that undermines public interest because of lack of democratic management and control.

The Buhari-led government that promised change still carries on the rotten old order and has further entrenched neo-liberal policies that guarantee the interest of a few privileged persons at the expense of the vast majority.

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) calls for the nationalization (public ownership) of the entire oil industry under democratic control and management of workers and consumers. We hold that this is the only way the oil industry can be efficiently managed, petroleum products will be adequately supplied and affordable such that the interest of all will be guaranteed.

Chinedu Bosah

National Secretary, Socialist Party of Nigeria

REGISTRATION OF 21 POLITICAL PARTIES BY INEC: SPN ALSO DEMANDS ITS REGISTRATION AS ORDERED BY COURT

PRESS STATEMENT

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) welcomes the registration of 21 political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

However, SPN is calling on INEC to immediately obey the judgment of the Federal High Court that was delivered by Justice Kolawole Gabriel on November 28, 2017. The judgment ordered INEC to register SPN within 30 days of the judgment. It is eighteen days after the judgment and we expect that INEC would have complied. 

Hopefully, the registration of the 21 political parties will further open up the political space. But only the emergence of a political party with a genuine pro-masses ideology and programmes different from the anti-poor and neo-liberal capitalist programmes of the PDP and APC will truly give more options to the people. This is why the registration of the SPN is crucial to ensure that voters have a real choice.

Some of the new political parties recently registered submitted their applications much after the SPN whose application was submitted on June 12 2013 – more than four years ago!

It is becoming clear that INEC’s refusal to register the SPN despite having fulfilled all requirements and conditions since the year 2014 is politically motivated. Members of SPN have a constitutional and democratic right to form a political party. 

We are hereby using this opportunity to demand that INEC should register the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and issue the party its registration certificate without any further delay.  

Chinedu Bosah

National Secretary

SPN: AT THE THRESHOLD OF WORKING CLASS POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE HISTORY!

TEXT OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE HELD ON DECEMBER 7 BY THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF NIGERIA (SPN) IN REACTION TO THE COURT JUDGMENT OF THE FEDERAL HIGH COURT DIRECTING INEC TO REGISTER THE PARTY

As you may already be aware, a Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Gabriel Kolawole in a judgment delivered on Tuesday November 28, 2017 ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to register the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) within thirty (30) days.

We of the SPN welcome this judgment, which confirms our democratic and legitimate right to freedom of association as a political party for the main purpose of participating in the electoral and governance processes on the basis of socialist ideas and programmes as our name clearly indicates.

It would be recalled that the SPN had on September 10, 2014 instituted a case at the Federal High Court in Abuja, challenging INEC's undemocratic refusal to register the party despite fulfilling all constitutional and legal requirements including the payment of INEC-imposed One Million Naira (N1,000,000.00) administrative fees.

While we welcome the judgment, we hold that it is a sad commentary on the judicial system that a seemingly straight forward case lasted over three years. This is due to the systemic problem in the nation's judiciary in addition to the delay tactics of the INEC. We call on the government to adequately fund the judiciary, just as we campaign for a more democratic and vibrant judicial system that defends the majority, especially working people, youth and the poor who constitute the vast majority of our population, but are mostly the victims of injustice and defective judicial system.

SPN extends its gratitude to Mr. Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika and the Citipoint Chambers for rendering legal services at no cost to the party. We equally congratulate all party members, sympathizers and collaborators for their supports, steadfastness and persistent campaigning thus far. This victory is for the long suffering working masses, who are yearning for a viable, genuine and radical political alternative as well as a better society.

WHAT NEXT?

We hereby call on INEC to issue SPN its certificate without delay so that concrete party work including mobilizing the mass of the people towards genuine working class oriented transformation of Nigeria can begin in earnest. SPN is prepared to be a robust and effective opposition to the pro-rich and anti-poor political parties in power at all levels. At the moment there is no opposition in Nigeria because the two biggest parties, APC and PDP, embraces the same neo-liberal and anti-poor policies. We are equally poised to play a role in forthcoming elections both in the states as well as the 2019 general elections as a credible political alternative to all those who are disenchanted with the status quo and desire a different kind of politics.

INEC has already wasted enough time; it should not further serve as a clog in the wheel of progress. The court order should be immediately complied with by INEC. Nigerian working people cannot wait any longer to have the party that represents their long term interests on the ballot. 

Furthermore, we call on workers, trade unionists, activists, students, traders, journalists, unemployed, artisans, pro-labour organizations to join and build the SPN across the length and breadth of this country. We are building a party that stands for millions of people and not for the looters. 

Hence, we are committed to challenging the present capitalist arrangement that has made live unbearable for majority of the population, despite the stupendous natural, agricultural, human and material resources in the country, and the world. Meanwhile, the rich few continue to live in superabundance and wasteful opulence. This is the product of capitalist political economic relation. It is this obviously unjust arrangement that SPN wants to challenge through mass mobilization of the working people, youth and the oppressed to effect radical political change through democratic processes, with a view to implementing socialist programmes.

WHAT SPN STANDS FOR IN BRIEF

The condition of living for the vast majority of Nigerians has become increasingly difficult due to rising cost of living and massive job losses. The resultant effect of this rising cost of living is growing poverty. This is an indictment of the Buhari/APC-led government and all previous capitalist governments. 

Instead of meeting the aspirations of the people, the Buhari government is committed to capitalism and its agencies, the IMF and World Bank, whose anti-poor policies of privatization, deregulation and cuts in social spending are responsible for our woes. 

As a political party, we are all out to offer and campaign for a socialist alternative. Our core agenda is to defend and protect the socio-economic and political interest of workers and the poor masses in general.

• SPN is committed to reversing all anti-people policies of privatization, commercialization, deregulation etc., and in its place, the commanding heights of the economy starting with the oil and gas industry, banks and financial institutions will be nationalized and placed under democratic control of workers and consumers in order to end corruption and bring about efficiency. This socio-economic plan is geared towards meeting the needs of all as against the profit of a privileged few as we presently have it.
• Hence we shall reverse the privatization of public electricity and place it under democratic public control. We shall increase power generation exponentially and ensure stable supply of cheap electricity to home and industry, pursue and recover all public monies which has been given to the private owners of electricity and put to trial all those responsible for the stealing of our public wealth through different guises.
• SPN is committed to massive public expenditure in basic infrastructures and social services like transport system, education, healthcare, mass housing, technology, water supply, etc., in order to create jobs on a massive scale. We shall immediately declare public education and healthcare free at all levels. We shall do all these by mobilisation and judicious use of the resources and also by not enriching few contractors through fictitious and wasteful contract system. We shall establish and equip a democratically-managed public work department, which will undertake most of public projects. Contracting will only be used where there is obvious lack of capacity (technical and otherwise) of the public work department.
• We are committed to reducing jumbo salaries and allowances of top political office holders and top bureaucrats to salary of public workers. All revenue saved by this reduction will be invested in basic infrastructures.
• Besides, our party will implement living wage and pension. We support the N56, 000 minimum wage declared by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and we want it increased in line with the inflationary rate. Hence, we demand an end to unpaid salary/pension regime in the culpable states that has further pauperized the workers.
• SPN is committed to progressive taxation and shifting the tax burden from the poor to the rich. Therefore, the wealth and assets of the super-rich will be taxed heavily. If the rich can spend hundreds of millions of naira to procure properties they hardly use or use for luxury, they should be able to pay heavy tax on them. We do not need to rely on philanthropy of the rich few to run our society; we need them to pay their socially fair share of tax on the wealth and assets acquired through the sweat of working people, and at the expense of the society.
• SPN stands for the protection of democratic rights including the rights of all minority groups and ethnic nationalities. This also includes the right to assemble and speech, freedom of movement, freedom to reside anywhere of choice, freedom to hold opinions and expression. We are committed to the unity of the working masses, respect the cultural, linguistic and religious rights of minorities but recognize the right of all peoples to self-determination.
• The Party will fight corruption by running an open transparent administration and governance by bringing the mass of the people into governance to checkmate bureaucracy, nepotism and cronyism. Elected representatives of workers, community, social groups, alongside government representatives will transparently and democratically run administration at all levels.
• SPN stands for a genuine politics that is not monetized. Therefore, there will not be special privileges, especially monetary, for officials of the party, either within the party or in public offices. Contrary to other political parties, the SPN does not require party members to pay fees in order to stand for SPN party positions or nominations. But we will require any SPN members elected to public positions to take the wage of a worker, along with necessary expenses, and donate the rest of their wages and allowances to SPN and workers' movement.
• Immediately the SPN will be campaigning for payment of all salary and pension arrears; an increase in the minimum wage with no retrenchment; no electricity price hike and an increase in the education and health budgets.

Abiodun Bamigboye

Deputy National Chairperson

Chinedu Bosah

National Secretary