In a packed symposium at FIWON Secretariat, Biket Road, Osogbo, organised by the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), Alfred Adegoke, the gubernatorial candidate of the SPN in the Osun 2018 election, discussed his manifestoes with workers, artisans and other informal workers that participated in the programme from the length and breadth of Osun State.
The symposium had present on the panel labour leaders like Gbenga Komolafe (National General Secretary, Federation of Informal Workers of Nigeria – FIWON) and the Osun State Chairman of the United Labour Congress (ULC), including Comrade Ibrahim, General Secretary, FIWON, Osun State Chapter. Other socialist activists like Comrade Akinrinde Kazeem, Comrade Rasheedat, and the National Chairperson of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) also addressed the people from the podium. Comrade Kola Ibrahim, the Coordinator of the Alfred Adegoke Campaign Committee and the State Secretary of the SPN moderated discussions at the symposium.
Comrade Kazeem, a socialist activist from the Campaign for Workers’ Alternative (CWA), kicked off the day’s discussion from the podium. Comrade Kazeem in his address highlighted the failure of the political elites in Osun and the country at large since the victory of the struggle of the masses against military rule. In his words, “the soldiers only changed from their military fatigue to civilian dresses as they continued with their reign of impunity over the country, with unprecedented corruption and anti-people’s policy.” “The emergence of President Buhari was a crafty scheme of the ruling class to loot Nigeria under the cover of the so-called Buhari’s integrity factor,” he noted. He further stressed to the masses that beyond elections, the masses shall one day rise to save themselves as they attempted to do during the mass revolt against fuel subsidy removal in January 2012.
Comrade Rashidat, another socialist activist from the CWA drew the people’s attention to the gradual decimation of social infrastructures like education and health care. She came down hard on the failure of the owner-states of LAUTECH, that is, the Osun and Oyo States’ governments, to fund the institution that once boasted of sterling records and potentials. In her opinion, it showed the differences of interests between the elites and the common people of this country, who have had to bear the brunt of the greed and corruption of the ruling class while the ruling class had the luxury of seeking health and education services from the advanced countries for themselves and their family members. Comrade Rasheedat’s speech caught the attention of participants at the symposium, who themselves are affected one way or another by the anti-masses policies of the state government.
Two leaders from National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) and the United Labour Congress also addressed the audience, describing in passionate terms the consistent record of Barrister Alfred Adegoke as an ally in the various struggles of their union against the privatisation of the power sector and retrenchment of the electricity workers. They claimed that the role played by Barrister Alfred and the organisation he led, the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), which initiated the process of registration of the SPN, was remarkable at a time when the struggle had few allies due to the intensity of government’s propaganda and public ignorance on the issue. They both respectively suggested that the farsightedness of Barrister Alfred Adegoke and DSM was borne out in the subsequent failure of the privatisation exercise, and the imminent increase in electricity tariff across the country.
A cross section of participants, from among automobile repairers, traders and artisans, asked questions bothering their minds concerning the candidacy of Alfred Adegoke. The questions although asked in different formulations are inherently similar in essence. Some asked how they can be sure that Barrister Alfred would do all that has been promised by the speakers who spoke earlier concerning the programmes of a socialist government. Others raised questions concerning the newness of the party and the bias of the people towards big and wealthy parties.
In a short intervention by the moderator, Kola Ibrahim, who is also the Coordinator of Alfred Adegoke Campaign Organisation, he detailed the difference in the programmes of the SPN as opposed to the other political parties. He said “the other parties are fond of telling you about glorious promises, but they fall short of telling you how they plan on realising those big promises. The SPN has provided that explanation that it would block the portal of wastage of public funds through the salaries and remuneration of political office holders, because the public officials of the party shall earn the same salary as civil servants in the Osun State Civil Service.” “You ask us how you can trust our candidate,” he continued, “Our candidate has sworn to a court affidavit to abide by the manifestoes of the SPN and could therefore be legally held accountable for his promises as a break with this or that programme shall amount to the criminal offence of perjury.”
On his part, Barrister Alfred Adegoke, the candidate of the SPN, kicked off his address by clarifying the impression that he was just coming to the masses due to his political aspiration. “Through my legal practice alone spanning over thirty years, I have represented various unions on pro bono basis in defense of their democratic and human rights,” he noted. Continuing, he explained “that central to the programme of the SPN is a radical departure from the corrupt governance system that has ruined society. For example, every government in Nigeria irrespective of its political party inflates the cost of constructing roads and other infrastructures at times four times of their actual cost. By World Bank reckoning, road construction in West Africa was estimated to cost a maximum of N236 million per kilometre of road, but the average cost of such project in Nigeria and even Osun State here is N1 billion per kilometre. If elected, I shall not award any contract so that we could end once and for all the ripping off of the people by political Godfathers and cronies through inflated and bogus contracts. We shall instead employ the artisans and the state civil service to carry out these projects for society, with the added advantage that much of the funds expended on public infrastructures are retained within Osun’s local economy and further creating permanent and pensionable jobs for both skilled and unskilled job seekers.”
“Down with Godfatherism,” he declared. “It is on record that my party is the only party in Nigeria that is not charging a dime for her nomination fees, and that is giving such out freely as the law demands. I did not spend a dime to purchase my nomination fee. It is through contribution by common people that we have been financing this campaign. We therefore have no debt to pay back to any godfather than the society at large;” Barrister Alfred said to a resounding applause from the participants. He also highlighted his plan for a free public education system and free healthcare, which further distinguish his programmes from the other political parties in the race.
The acting National Chairman of the Socialist Party of Nigeria in his own brief remark led the participants through the tumultuous history of legal and political struggle that led to the registration of the SPN. He said the SPN was formed due to the absence of a political party that the common people can call their own among the plethora of political parties existing in the political space of the country today. He noted that the other parties are set up by the same clique of billionaires, who have reduced the masses to tools of realising their ambitions of seizing political power to expand their business interest and capital. In his words, “the SPN only relies on contributions of members and supporters to fund its activities, and we believe that political offices should be held on the basis of commitment to the idea that society should be developed through the resources. This is why we charge no cost for the nomination form of our party. And anyone who is committed to social change could start in his community the task of organising like minds that are interested in a society that can work for all of us rather than a few.”
Comrade Gbenga Komolafe gave the final address to participants who have enthusiastically sat through over six hours of political discussion without the usual monetary inducement that have characterised and motivated participation at political gatherings of the other political parties. In Gbenga Komolafe’s address, “Socialism is not a new political doctrine in Nigeria. It is the belief that every human being is equal and should be given equal opportunity in society, without conferring advantage on a section of the people over another section.” He drew comparison with the SPN and the 1964 Jos Conference of the Action Group led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, where it was agreed that socialism should be adopted as a political programme of the Action Group. “There was several malicious attack against this doctrine that some critics went as far as saying that Awolowo wanted to seize the properties of the common people. Of course, there were angers against Awolowo initially until he explained that socialism meant free education, free healthcare and provision of social infrastructures that would enable every citizen to realise his full potentials.” He however noted that the present crops of political parties, including those who claim descent from Awolowo never actually emulated his “socialist” ideology. "Socialism is therefore not a new programme in our political history,” he noted. He however admonished the workers not to sell their votes or be carried away by the filthy fame of the other political parties, but to join and vote the Socialist Party of Nigeria that is organised in the interest of the common people.
The gathering’s foremost significance was in the fact that the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) was indeed the first party in the Osun gubernatorial race to invite the common people, without monetary inducement of any sort, to participate in a forum where the public can engage a candidate on his programmes. Before now, the mainstream media have streamlined the contestants in this election to the wealthy political parties while shutting out newer parties like the SPN from airing their manifestoes, and unconsciously working to narrow down the people’s choice to other anti-people parties contesting in the election. Political parties also go as far as spending millions of naira to mobilise campaigners who are paid handsomely to populate political campaigns. But the Saturday, 8th September symposium of the SPN drew its attendance from the sections of the society that face more intensely the excruciating effects of corrupt governance. The State Chairman of NATA (the Union of mechanics and automobile repairers), including over seventy other artisans and traders, including young people, were in the audience and actively contributed in the discussions that ensued there.
It is instructive to note that the symposium was a significant intervention of the SPN in this Osun 2018 electoral contest as coherent, pro-people’s programmes are posed against the mainstream idea that certain social infrastructures like free education or healthcare or a Governor on the same wage as civil servants are not possible. Also unlike the Ekiti election where the people were forced to sell their votes due to the lack of alternatives among the plethora of parties that contested in that election, the Osun election has the option of the SPN that fully shares the same aspiration with the people for creation of job and demystification of political offices among others.
Wole Olubanji
Organising Secretary, Alfred Adegoke Campaign Organisation
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