PhotoNews: SPN Holds Mass Leaflet Circulation and Sensitisation in Lagos

Over the weekend of Saturday July 28 and Sunday 29, members of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) Lagos State Chapter hit the street in different parts of the state for a mass circulation of party's leaflet that is critical of various anti-poor policies and actions of Ambode/APC led government of the state. We also put forward the alternative programme of the SPN and policies that will be implemented if the party in power in the state and asked people to join the party. Apart from leaflet circulation there were direct engagements with ordinary people some of whom indicated interest to join the party . Thousands of copies of the leaflet were distributed altogether in Ajegunle, Agege, Ijaiye, Idimu/Egan, Iyana-Ipaja, Abule-Egba  Shomolu, Fadeyi and Obalande.

Ijaiye

 

Rufus Olusesan  SPN Lagos Chair

 

Idimu

 Iyana Ipaja

Shomolu

Ajegunle

 Abule-Egba 

 

 Agege

 

SPN SUPPORTS RETIREES’ PROTEST IN OSUN

We Condemn Aregbesola Government’s Insensitive Attitude towards Suffering Retirees and Workers

Press Release:

 

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), Osun State Chapter hereby supports the mass protests and rallies being organized by the retirees in Osun State over wicked and criminal denial of their entitlements by the Aregbesola/APC government. From our records, a majority of the retirees are owed as much as 18 months’ arrears of pensions, while gratuities of most retirees have not been paid. It would be recalled that the government has been paying fractional salaries and pensions to workers and retirees respectively since 2015, thus pushing workers and retirees to the brink of poverty and avoidable suffering. As we are writing this statement, the government has not paid the fractional salaries and pensions for the month of June.

We condemn the crude and insensitive response of the government through the Commissioner for Information, who claimed that the retirees were ungrateful, and that they were politicians. We ask that the Commissioner tell us what the retirees should be grateful for. Is it mass death occasioned by the non-payment of pensions and gratuities or mass poverty institutionalized by the government in the lives of the retirees and their families? It is shameful that the government will feel no sense of remorse that its criminal failure to pay full salaries and pensions as at when due, has caused untold hardship, loss of lives, health challenges and miseries for tens of thousands of families in the state.

We expect a responsible government to show some sense of remorse whenever workers and retirees protest non-payment of their entitlements; and not display crude arrogance towards such protests. It is more worrisome that a government and party that claim not to have money to pay workers and retirees, spent several millions, if not billions, on its governorship primary elections.

We demand that the government open the account of the state for public scrutiny. The Aregbesola government aside owing several months’ arrears of salaries and pensions, as plunged the state into serious debt crisis that runs to close to N200 billion. Worse still, social services like education and healthcare have been left in terrible conditions.

Currently, lecturers in the state-owned colleges of education are bracing up for strike over the same fractional salaries and arrears of over 18 months’ salaries. Ladoke Akintola University (LAUTECH), which is partly owned by the Osun State government has reportedly announced a new regime of fees in the school, which would have students paying more than 100 percent increase. The lecturers’ union, ASUU in the same university have declared strike over non-payment of their entitlements. All of these are products of chronic underfunding of the university by the Aregbesola and Ajimobi governments in Osun and Oyo State respectively. LAUTECH Teaching Hospital in Osun State, the main government-owned tertiary health institution in the state has been turned into commercialized or semi-privatized institution, due to poor funding. 

The so-called infrastructures upon which the government claimed to have committed the loans into have become mostly abandoned and uncompleted. Obviously, the Aregbesola government has left Osun State and the working people in worse conditions than it met them.

We give our unalloyed support to retirees and workers, and call on them not to be deterred by the irresponsible response of the Aregbesola government and its officials. SPN will continue to give all necessary support to workers and retirees in their struggle to collect their fully salaries, pensions, gratuities and arrears. We call on workers in Osun State to take a cue from the pensioners and take the road of mass action. The only language the Aregbesola government, and its anti-poor APC party, understand is mass actions of workers, retirees, youths and students.

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) will be contesting to defend the interests of workers, retirees, youths, students and the poor in the forthcoming Governorship Election in Osun State. The SPN is committed to reversing all anti-poor, anti-worker policies of the Aregbesola/APC government in Osun State. SPN will, if elected, immediately stop fractional salaries and pensions. We will pay full salaries and pensions to workers and retirees, and begin immediate offset of arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities. We shall also commit public resources to fund social services like education and health. While admittedly Osun state is not a rich state comparable to Lagos for instance, nevertheless we firmly believe that were it not for official corruption and profligacy of the Aregbeosla regime, the federal allocations and internally generated revenue could have been put to better use. 

Therefore, our party pledge to carry out immediate and comprehensive probe of the Aregbesola administration with a view to recover looted funds. We call on workers, retirees, youth and the poor to use the opportunity of this governorship election to end the rule of poverty and want, instituted by the Aregbesola/APC government in Osun State, by voting the candidate of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), Comrade Alfred Adegoke, a leading workers’ activist, for governor.

Once again, we give our solidarity to protesting retirees.

Signed

Alfred Adegoke
SPN Governorship Candidate 

  

Kola Ibrahim

SPN State Secretary

OSUN Election: Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) Elects Comrade Alfred Adegoke as Governorship Candidate

The Osun State Chapter of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), the party for the workers, youths and the poor masses, at its democratically convened State Congress/Governorship Primary, elected Comrade Alfred Adegoke Esq. as its candidate in the forthcoming Governorship Election holding in Osun State on 22nd of September, 2018.

Comade Alfred Adogoke accepting his nomination at the primary

The State Congress/Governorship Primary, which held on Saturday, 21st July, 2018 at the party secretariat in Osogbo had in attendance four (4) representatives of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) attending as observers, and the Acting National Chairperson of the Party, Comrade Abiodun Bamigboye as Chair. Comrade Alfred Adegoke Esq. was unanimously voted by the delegates present to carry the socialist banner of the party in the Governorship Election.

Comrade Alfred Adegoke is a longtime activist and socialist, who has committed close to 30 years of his life to emancipation of working people and youth in Nigeria. He was the Secretary General of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Students' Union in 1988/89. He was also a major figure in the anti-military rule struggle. He was a national mobilization officer of the Joint Action Committee of Nigeria (JACON), led by the legendary late Gani Fawehinmi. JACON was one of the organisations that led the struggle against the Abacha monstrous regime. Unlike many fair-weather activists, Alfred Adegoke has maintained his commitment to the emancipation of the working and toiling people. He has continued to play active roles in the struggles and agitations of workers, the masses and youths nationally and in Osun State.

INEC Officials

As a lawyer of over 25 years' experience, he has used his legal resources to defend the working people, poor, students and youths. He has legally defended and represented workers, students and trade associations and unions against attacks by the anti-worker and anti-poor governments and bosses. He is a lawyer to many workers' and students' unions and associations. He was a prominent figure in the struggle of Osun State workers and retirees against poor working conditions, unpaid salaries and pensions. All this has earned him victimization by the state and its apparatus.

Alfred Adegoke as a socialist believes that the collective resources of our country and Osun State in particular, if used judiciously and in the interests of the working people, youth and the poor, who constitute the majority, can meet needs of the people, improve our living standards and develop our society.

The decision of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) to contest in the Osun Governorship Election is historic, as this will be the first time that a clearly-defined socialist party will be contesting for governor in Nigeria and Osun State in particular.

Party Delegates

Secondly, this election is coming at a time that all the major bourgeois/capitalist parties have failed the working people and youth, economically, politically and socially. This has left the masses in deplorable living conditions. For instance, while Aregbesola/APC government owes workers and retirees several months of unpaid salaries and pensions, and gratuities, fees in state-owned Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) has just been increased by over 100 percent. Furthermore, health services have been commercialized and priced out of the reach of the working people. Without working people, poor and the youth having a socialist alternative, they will be left with no choice than to vote any of the anti-workers, anti-youth political parties represented by the ruling parties and their surrogates, who subscribe to capitalist program.

SPN calls on working and poor people to reject all anti-poor and corrupt political parties that represent capitalist ideology. We call on workers, youth and the poor to vote Alfred Adegoke, the socialist candidate of SPN in the forthcoming Osun Governorship Election holding in September, 2018. SPN will end all anti-poor anti-worker policies of the ruling party in Osun State.

SPN government, among other programmes, will:

• End the half-salary and half-pension policy and ensure full and regular salaries and pensions for all workers and retirees
• End the fraudulent contract system that has been used to loot our treasury
• End Jumbo pays and allowances for all political office holders
• Equip and empower the Ministry of Works to carry out all projects (roads, water works, mass housing, school building, hospitals, etc.) under the supervision of elected committees of workers, communities, professional groups and government officials
• Provide free and quality education and healthcare at all levels
• Invest massively in agriculture through provision of farm machineries and inputs in each local government for farmers
• Put tens of thousands of youths in decent, regular and pensionable jobs through massive public works programmes (roads, water works, mass housing, school building, hospitals, agriculture, etc.)

Vote Socialist Alternative!

Vote Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN)!!

Vote Alfred Adegoke as Governor of Osun State on workers' salary in the September 22, 2018 Election!!!

Kola Ibrahim

State Secretary

2018 FEDERAL BUDGET WILL CONSOLIDATE POVERTY AND INCREASE WEALTH OF A PRIVILEGED FEW

SPN DEMANDS HUGE INVESTMENT ON SOCIAL SERVICES AND BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE UNDER A DEMOCRATIC CONTROL 

PRESS STATEMENT

The 2018 Budget is not fundamentally different from previous ones. The only constant thing about budgets in the last five years is the steady increment in the volume of budget as well as debt servicing. Capital expenditure nosedived in 2016 from N601 billion allocated in 2015 to mere N173.1 billion which was actually spent. However, in the same year 2016 debt servicing recorded N1.3 trillion up from N1 trillion in 2015. Hence, the budgets for social services like education and health have recorded paltry allocations.

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) sees the 2018 budget as, once again, having all the hallmarks of a capitalist budget in a time of mounting crisis. It is a budget of poverty consolidation and enrichment of a few privileged persons. We do not see the rational for servicing of debt to the tune of N2.01 trillion an amount that equals the amount allocated to Education (N661 billion), Health (N356 billion), Agriculture and Rural Development (N203 billion), Water Resources (N155 billion), Power, Works and Housing (N715 billion) put together. What this clearly shows is that the Buhari-led government prioritizes the interest of a few creditors, most of whom are members of the ruling class, far and above the obligations to the Nigerian working masses.

It is obvious that governments at all levels have continually plunged the Nigeria economy into needless debt as a means of largely acquiring more public funds to themselves, resulting in increasing debt servicing. Besides, the Nigerian working masses do not feel any positive impact of these loans considering the fact that the loan are largely mismanaged and looted. The most ridiculous is government constantly and mostly borrowing money from the privileged few and imperialist institutions through financial instruments like treasury bills only to pay back one of the highest interest rates in the world and, to make matters worse, the loans are mostly not invested on anything tangible. The government through the CBN gives loans to the commercial banks only to borrow same money at a more profitable rate is round stripping and stealing. Inflation in Nigeria is mostly influenced by cost push and not demand push considering the fact that Nigeria is mostly an import nation with weak currency, weak purchasing power, lacking basic infrastructure, high cost of credit currently hovering 20% etc.

A government that claims to bring about change should pay more attention to social services and massive job creation but typically of the capitalist government, less attention are paid to the challenges confronting the people. SPN is opposed to the provocatively high allocation to the National Assembly (N139.5), Office of the Secretary to the Federal Government (N112 billion), Office of the National Security Adviser to the Federal Government (N123billion) and the jumbo salaries and allowances for political office holders in the executive, legislators, agencies etc., put at over N500 billion. SPN government will reduce the allocation to the National Assembly by at least 80% and same for Office of Secretary to the FG and Security adviser to the FG and thereby saving about N300 billion that will be channeled into education, health etc.

In the same way the reduction of jumbo salaries and allowances to the average wage and allowances of civil servant will save at least another N300billion. SPN will pay back loans that were utilized in the interest of the people but will not service or pay loans owed to looters while some of the loans will be re-negotiated. SPN is opposed to Tax amnesty of N87.8 billion BUT favours making the rich and the big companies to pay more tax and hereby raising additional revenue from corporate income tax from N658 billion to at least N1 trillion. Massive investment in social infrastructure and industrialization under a democratic control of the working people will drastically the cost of doing business and consequently attract more small and medium scale businesses.

The SPN will scrap the allocation to Power Reform Program of N193 billion in line with its renationalization program of the power sector. SPN will also scrap the N65 billion for amnesty to militants and N150 billion allocated to Special Intervention Program and invest these resources in addition to the existing allocation to expand, education, health, environment, housing etc., and by so doing train, educate and create jobs to youths in general as a means of eradicating militancy, kidnapping and other social vices in one plan to eradicate poverty and joblessness.

The Buhari government and the entire ruling elite are not thinking about industrialization let alone planing towards it, the government confuses foreign investment with industrialization. Attracting foreign Investment will not industrialise the economy, at best the foreign investors will cherry pick and exploit the opportunities to make the most profits. Only massive investment in key sectors like education, integrated transportation, rural development, modern agriculture, healthcare, steel etc., in a planned manner can industrialise and create jobs on a massive scale. The essence of industrializing the economy is to produce and carryout services faster, better and efficiently with the aim of improving the quality of life. This also means producing small tools and big machines including automated ones in Nigeria to enable the economy's productivity increase and thereby raise living standards. 

The capitalist ruling elite in a neo-colonial economy is incapable of achieving industrialization and advancement in the economy because it is weak to challenge the imperialist capital. The task of achieving sustainable economic progress can only be carried out by the working masses through nationalized planned economy under transparent and democratic control and management by the working people themselves. This is what the SPN will work to achieve by building a movement of Nigerian working people and poor that can transform the country.

Abiodun Bamigboye

Acting National Chairperson

Chinedu Bosah

National Secretary

SPN SYMPATHIZES WITH VICTIMS OF FLOOD IN ABEOKUTA AND OTHER OGUN STATE COMMUNITIES

WE WARN THAT A GREATER DISASTER AWAITS IN THE RURAL COMMUNITIES OF IFO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OGUN STATE UNLESS GOVERNOR IBIKUNLE AMOSUN-LED STATE GOVERNMENT WAKES UP FROM ITS SLUMBER

 

PRESS STATEMENT 

 

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), IFO Local Government Area (LGA) chapter, sympathizes with the victims of flood which occurred last Friday 13 July 2018 in Abeokuta during a heavy rainfall. According to reports, no fewer than 5 people may have lost their lives while properties worth millions of naira were destroyed by the flood.

 

As far as we are concerned, this is a natural disaster made worse by the failures of the Governor Ibikunle Amosun-led State government. We therefore put the responsibility for this disaster at the doorstep of the Ogun state government and demand immediate compensation to all victims as well as emergency measures to prevent a new flood considering that the rainy season is far from over.

 

However while sympathizing with the people of Abeokuta, we warn that a far greater disaster beckons in the rural communities of Ifo Local Government Area of Ogun state like Oke Aro, Olambe, Matogun, Giwa, Koye Oke, Alagbole, Ajuwon, Akute etc if the Governor Ibikunle Amosun-led State government does not wake up for its slumber. These are communities that have been abandoned for long by the government in the areas of provisions of basic public infrastructures. There are no drainages or water channels in these communities because there are no tarred roads!

 

It is disheartening and a sign of the insensitivity of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) to the plight of the people of these communities that all the road projects began by the Governor Ibikunle Amosun-led government years ago have now been abandoned thus compounding the condition of the roads and adding to the hardship and pain of the people living in these communities. As a result, people in these communities are living in palpable fear for their lives as the rainy season intensifies. Infact, should there be a heavy downpour in these communities on the scale of the rainfall that caused the flooding in Abeokuta last week, there is no doubt that several parts of these rural and abandoned communities could be submerged leading to large scale death and destruction.

 

Our party therefore calls on the Governor Ibikunle Amosun-led state government to immediately come to the rescue of the inhabitant of these communities by ensuring that all abandoned road projects are completed, efforts made to tar all roads within the communities and drainage channels are dug in order to prevent mishap. As far as we are concerned, the Ogun state government has the resources to complete the abandoned road projects and even do more. But this will only be possible if the routine looting of the state treasury by politicians is blocked and the corrupt contract system replaced by a system of public works programme under which roads and other similar infrastructural projects will be undertaken directly by a retooled and motivated public works department instead of the current practice where infrastructural projects are contracted out to friends and political associates masquerading as contractors in order to steal public resources.

 

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) is a newly registered political party that stands for the interest of the working class and poor masses. We urge the people of Ifo LGA and Ogun state at large to join and support our party so that we can offer responsible, efficient and pro-people governance instead of the fraudulent, corrupt, inefficient and irresponsible governance that the PDP and APC have offered to the state since 1999.

 

 

 

_______________________                           ______________________

AYOMIDE E AJAKAYE                                     MALLAM YUSUF KAZEEM

CHAIRMAN                                                           SECRETARY

08064876421                                                        07068476258

EKITI ELECTION: NOT A PASS MARK FOR FAYEMI OR ENDORSEMENT OF BUHARI/APC-LED GOVERNMENT

*The election reflects mass rejection of the pro-establishment politicians and their political parties!
 

**NLC and TUC must commence the process of providing the working people with an independent pro-people political alternative either by forming a mass party or supporting the building of SPN into a mass party

Press Statement

 

The Socialist Party of Nigeria, SPN, describes the outcome of the July 14, 2018, Ekiti State gubernatorial election as neither a pass mark for Dr Kayode Fayemi of All Progressive Congress, APC nor an endorsement of Buhari/APC-led federal government. The election which was more or less a vote buying contest among capitalist political parties especially APC and PDP was not only characterized by militarisation and inducement of the electorate but also reflects a mass rejection of the pro-establishment politicians and their political parties by mass of the working people in the state.

According to the official election result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Dr Kayode Fayemi, the candidate of APC polled a total of 197,459 votes to defeat other candidates who participated in the election. These include his closest rival Professor Olusola Eleka of People Democratic Party, PDP who got 178,121 votes. The result further revealed that, the total votes cast is about 403,451. This is far below 50% of total number of registered voters of 913,334 people and 60% of about 646,000 people who collected permanent voters cards (PVC) in the state.

Going by this data, it is obvious that, Dr Kayode Fayemi did not get up to one third (33%) of the total number of people with PVC let alone that of the total numbers of the registered voters. It is in the light of this, we of SPN reiterate that, Dr Fayemi/APC electoral victory is far from being a pass mark! Again, despite the billions of naira allegedly spent to buy votes by capitalists’ politicians who participated in the said election especially that of PDP and APC, it is instructive to state that, the total votes cast fell below the 433,345 votes cast in 2014. Hence, the winner got about 30% of votes of the registered voters despite cash-and-vote election while at least 69% of registered voters rejected both anti-poor parties (APC and PDP).

This decline in the total vote cast is not surprising to us in SPN. We believe the decline in the turn-out of the electorate largely reflects the huge level of mass dissatisfaction among the people against the four years of misrule and administrative recklessness of the Governor Ayodele Fayose/PDP-led government in the state. It also represents the mass disappointments in the failure of president Buhari/APC-led government to resolve the problems of mass misery accentuated by PDP 16 years of misrules at the federal level. Also responsible for the decline is the fact that four year rule of Dr Kayode Fayemi as Governor of the state between 2010 and 2014 was characterized with mass attacks on workers and poor masses in the state.

Also worthy to note is that, the decision by over 69% of registered voters who either refused to collect the PVC or participate in the said election may not be unconnected with the fact that most working people in the country have been forced by their past experiences to believe that every politician that seeks political power does so for self-serving motive while mass of the working people continue to wallow in abject poverty. Thus, they believe it is a waste of time to participate in elections.

As much as this impression is true, it also important to state that the situation is partly because of the continuous refusal or inability of the leadership of the labour movement, NLC and TUC to offer the working people with an option of credible and independent mass pro-working people political alternative. This has made it difficult for the working people to arrive at a conclusion that only a government formed by them is capable of beginning to address and meet all of their economy and political aspirations and desires.

It in a bid to accelerate the process through which the working people will come to this realisation that we of the SPN call on the NLC and TUC to follow the example that led to the formation of SPN and commence the process of providing the working people with an independent pro-people political alternative either by forming a mass party or supporting the building of SPN into a mass party through which the masses can begin to express their true electoral value.  Unless the labour leaders are prevailed upon to yield to this their historical task, sections of the capitalist ruling class will always appropriate the anger of the working people against any section of their class that failed to meet the aspiration of the people to manoeuvre themselves to power.

Our effort to end the cycle of perennial replacement of one set of thieving elites with another in favour of establishment pro-working people government with a socialist programmes  explains why we shall continue to build SPN as a true alternative pro-working people political platform to all the existing capitalist political parties in the country. This we also hope could compel the leadership of labour movement in the country to form a pan-Nigeria working people political platform or support building the SPN as such mass platform that will have a wider organisation spread and structure across the length and breadth of the country.

Abiodun Bamigboye                                                                                     Chinedu Bosah

Acting National Chairperson                                                                          National Secretary

08033914091                                                                                                  07033775517