“DEMOCRACY DAY”: NO REAL DEMOCRACY

CDWR CALLS ON WORKING MASSES AND YOUTH TO JOIN JUNE-12 PROTESTS TO RESIST ANTI-POOR POLICIES AND ATTACKS ON DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS AND CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE TO ACTUALIZE REAL DEMOCRACY

June 12 signifies the struggle of the working masses for an enthronement of democratic rule with the hope that it would produce a better country wherein the needs of the masses are central to governance. But this aspiration is continuously undermined by the self-serving capitalist ruling elite. It is on this basis the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) is calling on the working masses across the country to join the mass protests scheduled for June 12 across the country as a continuation of the struggle to resist anti-poor policies and attacks on democratic rights as well as to defeat the self-serving capitalist elite and for the enthronement of real democracy.

Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) statement

June 12 or May 29 in Nigeria has been set aside as “Democracy Day” depending on the section of the ruling elite in power. The celebration is usually characterised with fanfare from the capitalist ruling elite whose interest is over protected at the expense of the vast majority. For the vast majority of the working people in Nigeria, their experience of the so-called democracy since 1999 means mass poverty in the midst of abundance. Periodic voting does not automatically indicate the presence and actualization of democracy. This is because the electoral process is skewed in favour of the few wealthy capitalist class at the expense of the vast majority. It is a selection process in which the vast majority are denied the right to own the process and truly democratically choose their public representatives. In other words, the bourgeois democracy is simply a process orchestrated to give the working masses only the choices of voting the ‘devil or the deep blue sea’.

Therefore, the CDWR sees the so-called democracy as civil rule that has descended into civilian dictatorship. From all indications, the interest of the vast majority has been abandoned, poverty imposed on most Nigerians, public education and healthcare neglected, cost of living keeps rising while wages of workers and earnings of the masses stagnate or retrogress.

The only beneficiary of this so-called democracy is the capitalist class whose wealth has increased geometrically while most people are continually condemned to more poverty. Political office holders and other top government functionaries earn outrageous salaries and allowances while most workers earn poverty wages. In place of neglected and underfunded public education and healthcare, the capitalist class use looted public funds to patronise expensive private schools and hospitals in the country and abroad; in place of abandoned roads and basic community infrastructure, the wealthy capitalist class build their own enclaves etc.

Expectedly, the capitalist ruling elite are responding to legitimate complaints of the pauperised masses in a brutal manner through clampdown and suppression of democratic rights. Similar to the attacks on democratic rights during the military, the civilian regimes since 1999 have deployed the same despotic tactics including the use of surveillance and kangaroo court processes to legitimize its despotic actions. For instance, at present many activists and bloggers are on sham trials and have had their freedom curtailed for expressing their democratic rights against the anti-poor policies or actions of the Tinubu government.

The CDWR warns the working masses not to place any trust or believe in any section of capitalist class. It is only the organised working class and the poor than can rescue this country. The fact is that injustice and denial of the socio-economic rights of the working masses have become an official state policy of the successive capitalist regimes, something that has been consolidated under President Tinubu’s regime. It is the responsibility and duty of the cheated vast majority working people to organise a sustained mass resistance anchored on mass struggle to consistently resist anti-poor policies, defeat the capitalist ruling elite and to reorganise the country along socialist programme as a means to meet the needs of all. It is only the coming to power of the working masses and running of society to protect the interest of the vast majority in the first instance and the defence of the interest of all in the long run can real and genuine democracy be seen to be practiced.

Rufus Olusesan

National Chairperson

Chinedu Bosah

National Publicity Secretary

Email [email protected]