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