N100 MILLION AND N40 MILLION NOMINATION FORMS FOR APC AND PDP RESPECTIVELY CONFIRM THAT THE TWO MAJOR POLITICAL PARTIES STAND EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE INTEREST OF THE RICH

WORKERS, YOUTHS AND THE POOR NEED TO BUILD A MASS PARTY TO DEFEND THEIR INTEREST

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) is not surprised at the decision of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to charge N100 million and N40 million respectively for presidential nomination forms. It only confirms our position that these bourgeois political parties only exist to defend the interest of the extremely privileged minority at the expense of the vast majority.

In 2018, APC sold nomination forms for N45 million which attracted widespread criticism but has now doubled-down by charging N100 million in 2022 for the presidential contest. APC is also charging N50 million for Governorship aspiration, N20 million for Senate, N10 million for House of Representatives, N2 million for House of Assembly. Aside from these outrageous fees, these self-serving bourgeois candidates spend huge sums of money to bribe voters, police officers, officials of the Independent Electoral Commissioner (INEC) and thugs. This moneybag politics is partly responsible for the increasing corruption. As far as we are concerned, the N100 million APC presidential nomination forms and pardon granted to two ex-governors serving jail term for corruption make it crystal clear that President Buhari has not only failed to genuinely fight corruption, but indeed he is consolidating it with moneybag politics.

In a capitalist society like Nigeria, politics has been commoditized and profiting has become the end game.

The objective for the capitalist ruling elite is to make politics the exclusive preserve of a tiny privileged ruling elite while reducing the vast majority of workers and poor masses to the role of voting periodically for any of the self-serving establishment ruling parties and their candidates. This lopsided democracy wherein workers and the poor can vote but cannot be voted for is one of the cornerstones of the capitalist dictatorship. The quest by the self-serving capitalist ruling elite to dominate the political space is the major reason for the deregistration of SPN and another 72 political parties recently. The deregistration of these political parties was based on a draconian law that stipulates that political parties will be deregistered when they do not win a seat or position in an election, whereas the capitalist parties that sponsor election violence and rigging are allowed to exist. The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) will continue the struggle for free and fair political space that allows everyone and groups to exist.

It is crystal clear the 2023 general election will produce another crop of desperadoes whose agenda is to continue the domination and looting of the economy. The economy in the hands of these self-serving capitalist ruling elite will continue along the ruinous path, there will be more job losses, more industries will collapse and poverty will continue to rise. The sharp contradictions embedded in a capitalist society will continue as we have witnessed in the massive disparity in the poverty wage being earned by the working class and the jumbo salaries and allowance earned by the bourgeois political office holders; the apartheid in the education, healthcare, housing sectors of the economy will continue; inequality will become sharper.

It is unfortunate that the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) are not prepared to challenge the capitalist ruling elite politically because they lack an alternative to the unjust capitalist programme and model of organizing society. Fundamentally, there is no way out of this crisis except the working masses and the trade union movement build a mass working class political party as a vehicle to defeat the self-serving ruling elite and set the country along a socialist path that entails the planning of society to meet the needs of all.

Abiodun Bamigboye

Acting National Chairperson

Chinedu Bosah

National Secretary

E-mail: [email protected]