Build Action Committees at Workplaces, Campuses and Communities
For a Rolling Mass Action and a 48-hour General Strike Now!
One incontrovertible fact in Nigeria today is that the past one and half years of President Tinubu’s government is an absolute disaster for the working class, youth and poor masses. The reason for this is not farfetched. Right from the day of his inauguration on 29 May 2023, President Tinubu declared war on the Nigerian people by implementing anti-poor and neo-liberal capitalist policies. Such polices include removal of fuel subsidy and the associated increase in pump price of fuel products, increase in electricity tariff, the naira devaluation as well as other neo-liberal policies.
The combined effect of these ruinous policies has succeeded in making life even more miserable for the working class, youth and poor masses as well as collapsing the economy. People have seen their standard of living crash before their very eyes. Civil servants, factory and informal sector workers who ordinarily were able to keep together a precarious form of existence a year ago now find themselves extremely pauperized. Many are unable to afford transport fare to go to work. Those who had personal vehicles have either parked them due to inability to afford the cost of petrol or sold them to eat or pay their children school fees in public primary, secondary and tertiary schools whose fees are also increasing at the same rate as prices of all commodities.
Efforts in some states to reduce the working week to 4 and 3 days, in some instance, has had little or no effect. Even with the newly approved minimum wage of N70, 000, which has not been implemented, the living standards of Nigerian workers will continue to be one of extreme pauperization because of how high inflation. The new wage is much worse in value than the old paltry N30, 000 when that was approved in 2019.
The same goes for sections of the middle classes who now find themselves flung onto the scrap heap of the laboring masses as galloping inflation and the crashing currency has succeeded in squeezing income, raising prices and crashing small businesses. For the ocean of the poor laboring masses who even in the time past were barely surviving, the result of President Tinubu’s policies is an unprecedented catastrophe. Many have now found themselves turned to beggars just to daily survive daily. At the same time, suicide is increasing as many find themselves in debt and other desperate situation from which they have no hope of extricating themselves from.
We Cannot Continue Like This
Definitely, the Nigerian people can no longer tolerate this. This has been made clear by the series of protests that have greeted these ruinous policies since February this year when spontaneous hunger protest broke out in different parts of the country. So far the high point of the mass resistance against President Tinubu’s ruinous policies was the #EndBadGovernance protest which erupted from 1st to 10 August 2024. That mass protest, which was heavily influenced by the anti-finance bill protest in Kenya, demonstrated very clearly the resolve of the Nigerian people not to continue to tolerate the situation.
Unfortunately, despite this, the mass protest of August has not yielded any fruits particularly with regards to the key demands of the movement. Moreso, the protest itself was greeted with heavy repression with at least 40 killed in different parts of the country by the police and security forces. Also, about 2,100 protesters were arrested nationwide. Part of those arrested is Adaramoye Michael Lenin (Member of the DSM and National Coordinator of the Youth Rights Campaign), Mosiu Sodiq, Daniel Akande, Angel loveth and 7 others who are on trial for treason because, according to the police prosecutor, they held placards that read “End Bad Government”.
According to Nigeria’s law, treason carries a death penalty – something which shows the severity of the case against these peaceful protesters. Also, many activists, journalists and whistleblowers are being watched and tracked through their phones and computers while the government is promoting a false narrative of a Russian plot behind the protest.
Consequent upon all these negative developments, it is inevitable that some layers might begin to draw pessimistic conclusions. For us in the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) however, we believe that there is no room for pessimism. While the regime has gone ahead to unleash widespread repression is precisely because it is weak and lacking of any real social base. Remember that only 8.8 million voted for Tinubu. However this does not mean the regime, now clearly a civilian capitalist dictatorship, is incapable of doing damage in the interim. This explains its continued recalcitrance even in the face of the growing opposition against its anti-poor policies.
Therefore, what is needed now to ensure the struggle wins is for activists to begin to discuss democratically about how to build, unite and strengthen the movement as well agreement on appropriate tactics and strategies to take the struggle forward. For instance, instead of announcing multiple days of protest like in August which can stretch the capacity of a hungry population too thin, initially a rolling mass of actions consisting of a day or two days of protests punctuated by a break of a week after which, another round of action is called might be the best way to initially build and sustain what could be a long struggle. However, such is the depth of anger in society that it is possible that quantity turns into quality and developments really speed up, something which would mean that activists will need to change gear and step up actions.
Also, there is a need to build from below organically with democratic grassroot action committees of the struggle at the workplace, communities and campuses nationwide. Such action committees acting nationwide can become the real power before the movement thereby ensuring that even in the case of mass repression leading to arrest of leaders, the movement can manage to survive to re-emerge on the streets again.
Nigerian Workers, Force Your Trade Unions (NLC and TUC) to Act Now!
The greatest tragedy of the current situation in the country is the shocking spinelessness of the leadership of the trade union movement. Despite the raging cost of living crisis in the country which affects members of the unions, the attitude of the leadership of both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has, in practice, been nothing but disappointing. Instead of joining the developing mass struggle, the NLC and TUC have mostly stood aside even as their members are reduced to starvation! Thus for no good reason the NLC abandoned the second day of the two day general strike it had called in June.
Not only have the trade unions refused to raise a demand for the reversal of oil subsidy removal, they have also refused to take any direct action to resist the sharp rises in fuel price while only limiting themselves to bombastic press statements without follow up actions. Their plan hope that a new minimum wage would bring relief to their members has now all collapsed in the face of the rampaging inflation which has reduced the new minimum wage of N70, 000 to virtually nothing. The amount is not enough to buy a bag of rice – a staple food in the country!
This is a lesson to the workers movement as it proves what we Socialists and labour activists have always argued that only a common struggle led by the labour movement against all anti-poor polices and, understanding the limits of capitalism, aims at replacing the entire system of capitalism with a Socialist alternative can bring real relief to workers. This is because no concession won under the capitalist system can last. This is especially so with the rampaging inflation and burgeoning public debt afflicting third world countries like Nigeria amidst the ongoing crisis of world capitalism.
In this situation, the approach of working within capitalism adopted by the leadership of the NLC and TUC has proven bankrupt and incapable of ensuring the stout defense of even the economic and social, let alone the political, interests of Nigerian workers. Unfortunately, instead of drawing this conclusion and changing course, the leadership of the NLC and TUC have persisted with the same approach even in the face of intimidation and harassment by the police and DSS of the NLC President, Joe Ajaero and other workers’ leaders. Not even the fact that an electricity workers’ union (NUEE) chieftain, Opaoluwa, has been detained for nearly two months in Kuje prison alongside the #EndBadGovernance protesters has prodded the trade unions to act. Rather, the labour leadership are desperate to dissociate themselves and trade unions from the August protest.
This is why it is now left for rank-and-file workers to force their unions to act. Workers must pass resolutions at work places and within their affiliate unions insisting that instead of standing aside, the NLC and TUC must join with the mass resistance against the regimes anti-poor policies by declaring a 48-hour general strike and mass protest as the immediate steps and part of a series of actions to be undertaken by the labour movement to strengthen the mass struggle. However, with or without the labour centre’s endorsement, rank and file workers including affiliate unions should be prepared to lend support to the developing mass struggle by joining every protest and organizing to support activists both materially and politically. This is the only way to begin to break the hold of the pro-capitalist trade union bureaucracy – a vital prerequisite for the rebuilding of the labour movement on a fighting programme.
To End Bad Governance, Fight For A Socialist Alternative
If we do not relent and we continue to fight, there is a possibility that the regime will be forced to grant some concessions. Even under the Ibrahim Babangida, Sanni Abacha and Abdusalam Abubakar brutal military dictatorships of the mid-90s, mass struggle forced concessions so why not now? Like we have pointed out, the widespread repression undertaken by the regime should not be interpreted as a sign of strength, rather it shows the weakness of the regime which was ‘elected’ with a minority vote last year. So, at some point, the regime, in the face of consistent struggle, is bound to consider granting a few demands.
However, we have to be clear that the source of the President Tinubu’s anti-poor policies goes beyond the regime itself. Rather it is a product of the crisis capitalism is in Nigeria and globally. What this means is that whatever concessions are granted would only bringing minimal reliefs which may not last. Why this doesn’t mean the demands are not worth fighting for in that case, yet it does mean that activists need to begin to have conversations about what really needs to be done to bringing lasting changes that can ensure Nigeria’s enormous wealth which is currently trapped in the hands of a few billionaires are released to begin to provide for the needs of the mass majority.
In this sense, it means to end bad governance, we have to fight to end capitalism and enthrone a socialist alternative which is the only system that can ensure that the wealth of Nigeria is rescued from the hands of the one percent and made available to make lives better for all. By taking the key sectors of Nigeria’s economy like the oil and gas, banks, big farms, and other commanding heights under public ownership and democratic workers control, it can be possible to implement a Socialist plan under which public health, education and housing can be provided for free to all citizens, functioning public refineries built to guarantee cheaper fuel products and genuine and real agriculture geared at sustainable food production and not profit established to ensure a harmoniously prosperous country free of poverty, want and misery as we have today.
If such a democratic people’s regime comes to power in Nigeria today, it would serve as a bold example to the long-suffering masses and youth all over Africa and the world which has seen both mass movements against poverty and governments defeated. Such an example would set the stage for a world-wide revolution to topple inequitable capitalism and all its rampart inequality, diseases, climate catastrophe and wars and replace it with a Socialist alternative only which can guarantee the survival of the people and the planet.
To achieve this, political power is not only necessary but an absolute prerequisite. Therefore, part of the programme of the developing mass movement should be to build a new mass working people and radical youth party with Socialist programme that can act as a vehicle to take political power from the one percent and begin to run Nigeria in the interest of the mass of the people and not the greed of a few.
THE DSM STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE MASS MOVEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE FOLLOWING CARDINAL DEMANDS:
(1) Say no to IMF neo-liberal policies. Reverse hike in fuel price and electricity tariff back to pre-May 29, 2023 level. Make government-owned refineries work to guarantee affordable fuel products.
(2) Reduce food prices and end hunger. Support farmers to ensure sustainable food production.
(3) End insecurity, banditry, terrorism and violent crimes. Prosecute culprits and their sponsors. For a robust security architecture and adequate support for soldiers at the front and their families.
(4) Release all #EndSARS and #EndBadGovernance protesters, journalists, whistleblowers and other victims of state repression unconditionally.
(5) Implement N70, 000 new National Minimum wage at all levels. For automatic real living minimum wage that is supported by law.
(6) Reduce the cost of governance. Place all political office holders on the minimum wage. Scrap security vote and constituency allowances.
(7) Provide free and compulsory primary and secondary education for all Nigerian children. Reduce tertiary education school fees. Give Nigerian students grant and not loans.
(8) Immediate prosecution and jailing of all corrupt politicians, judges, police, public servants and state officials.
(9) Massive investment in public works, social infrastructure and industrialization to create decent jobs for all.
(10) Genuine electoral reform. For independent candidature, diaspora voting and a truly independent electoral body.
BEYOND THIS, WE URGE THE WORKING MASSES AND YOUTH TO ALSO FIGHT FOR THE FOLLOWING:
(1) Form and build a mass workers and youth political party with socialist programmes to end capitalism and enthrone good governance in Nigeria.
(2) Free education and healthcare
(3) For a living wage now
(4) Public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers control and management.
(5) For a democratic Socialist Nigeria Now!
