The following text is from a leaflet being distributed by Democratic Socialist Movement (CWI Nigeria) and Youth Rights Campaign in Lagos and other areas in the nationwide protests scheduled to start on August 1.
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#ENDBADGOVERNANCEINNIGERIA
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Resist All Anti-Poor Policies, No to Attacks on Democratic Rights and Fight for Socialist Change
We of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) and Youth Rights Campaign (YRC) call on workers, artisans, traders, youth and the poor masses to support the call for nationwide peaceful protest over the prevailing mass hunger and cost of living crisis. Prices of food, energy, medicine and other basic items have gone through the roof beyond the capacity of ordinary people. This is a protest that must take place at every street and community if we are serious about wanting real change.
But the August protests must be just the start. We need to build a nationwide mass movement to sustain the mass struggle in order to force President Bola Tinubu to reverse all his anti-poor capitalist policies which are responsible for this excruciating economic hardship. These policies include criminal hike in fuel prices, devaluation of the naira, obnoxious increase in electricity tariff, increase in fees at public higher institutions beyond the capacity of working class and poor parents and increasing commercialization of services at public hospitals. These are the immediate causes of the aggravation of the cost-of-living crisis and economic malaise that preceded Tinubu government. So, in our communities, markets, schools and workplaces, we need to set up action committees that regularly organize mass meetings and protests and linked up nationally that can discuss and decide upon what should be the next steps.
We call on the leaderships of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) leadership and individual trade unions not to be neutral over the August protest, but mobilise workers to join the action, including with a declaration of a 24-hour general strike in support as the first step. Without a consistent struggle against anti-poor policies, even the small increment in the minimum wage will be soon eroded.
Tinubu and his spin doctors are trying to persuade suffering Nigerians to bear the hardship. We must not be deceived. The same Tinubu and top political office holders are feeding fat and maintain an obscene opulent lifestyle on our public funds. The House of Reps members recently pretended to care with the announcement of a decision to donate N108 million a month for six months by cutting down their salaries by 50 percent to purportedly address high cost of food. That is an egregious deceit and gargantuan insult to Nigerians. The so-called donation which totals N468 million is just a tiny fraction of N57.6 billion from our collective wealth they brazenly alone wasted on exotic cars. However, Reps members alone are not the culprits but also senators, ministers, governors and President as well as legislators and executive members at state and local government levels. They all pay themselves jumbo salaries and allowances at the expense of the vast majority. What we should call for is cut in the high cost of running government including placing all the political office holders on the civil service salary structure.
How to End Bad Governance
Bad governance is perennial in Nigeria. Sadly, it gets progressively worse. Many Nigerians had thought that the mass suffering experienced under Muhammadu Buhari government, which was a monumental failure, could not be surpassed. But Tinubu administration just in one year has proved otherwise. This is because the capitalist policies of deregulation and devaluation implemented by Buhari government and which were responsible for high cost of living then have now been intensified by Tinubu and with much greater commitment to the dictates of the IMF and World Bank. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that other main parties’ presidential candidates in the last election like Abubakar Atiku and Peter Obi advocated the same neo-liberal policies of removal of the so-called fuel subsidy and devaluation of the naira. So, Nigeria would have experienced the same economic hardship if Atiku or Obi had been the President. You cannot do things the same way and expect a different result. This is why the struggle over the cost-of-living crisis, high prices, attacks on public education and health, corruption etc. must also be linked to the need for a genuine mass working people party with an alternative economic programme that ensures that the huge human and material resources Nigeria is endowed with are used for the benefit of the vast majority, not the greed of a few. This alternative programme is socialism, collective ownership and truly democratic control over the key economic sectors so that the country’s resources are used for the majority. It is what is needed to end bad governance in Nigeria.
WHAT WE SHOULD FIGHT FOR
By and large, we urge working people and youth to fight for the following set of demands:
- Reversal in the fuel price hike to pre-May 29 levels.
- Reversal of Electricity Tariff Hike
- End to all neo-liberal policies.
- Reversal of hikes in school fees at tertiary institution and for adequate funding and democratic management of public education at all levels.
- For trade unions, civil societies and communities led actions to ensure price control and prevent price gouging and hoarding of food and other essentials.
- For full implementation of the new minimum wage without retrenchment. Automatic adjustment in the minimum wage in line with the rate of inflation.
- Immediate cut in the salaries and allowances of political office holders and top government functionaries. They must be placed on minimum wage salary structure of civil service.
- Unemployment benefits for young people willing to work but do not get jobs
- Respect for democratic rights and Free Press. Release of detained journalists and bloggers. No to Police Brutality. Rights of police and other security agencies personnel to form a trade union.
- Adequate Compensation for victims of #EndSARS Protest Clampdown and Immediate Freedom for all #EndSARS protester still in detention.
- Immediate fixing of public refineries and their democratic ownership and management by the working people.
- A price-cap on all petroleum products from the Dangote refinery and other private refineries in order to ensure affordability.
- Public ownership of the banks, financial institutions, industries, oil refineries under democratic workers control and management in order to ensure Nigeria’s economy works for the needs of all and not the greed of a few.
- For full democratic rights, genuinely free and fair elections with no monetary barriers to standing. End the godfathers’ grip.
- For the building of a genuine mass workers party with Socialist programme.
