TINUBU/ADC – Can the ADC Coalition Provide a Serious and Genuine Alternative?
Without mincing words, the Tinubu/APC government has been not just an utter failure, but a monumental disaster for Nigeria in its two years of existence. From day one, when President Bola Tinubu made his infamous declaration that ‘subsidy is gone,’ his administration has launched one attack after another on working people. Virtually every sector has become a source of extortion from Nigerians, especially the working class and the poor. From hikes in petrol prices and electricity tariffs to increased school fees, higher healthcare costs, and a devalued Naira, the resulting galloping inflation—exacerbated by fuel price increases and widespread insecurity—has rendered the already meagre incomes of working people, the middle class, and the poor utterly worthless.
By Kola Ibrahim
Although the minimum wage was purportedly raised to N70,000, this new wage offers little to no succour. In fact, it falls below the cost of living even before the Tinubu administration emerged, rendering the increase nearly meaningless while providing an alibi for the government to launch further attacks. Moreover, this increase has not been applied across the board in many establishments, including federal and state governments and the private sector. Crucially, the majority of Nigerians in the informal sector do not benefit from this meagre raise and must struggle to survive in these difficult times.
Beyond the assault on living conditions, basic services and public infrastructure have collapsed. Despite rising school fees and medical costs, public education from primary to tertiary level remains in a comatose state. The working conditions for education staff are still poor, and necessary infrastructure is either inadequate or in a deplorable state. In the health sector, resident doctors and other health workers have embarked on strikes over pay and conditions. Regarding infrastructure, while the Tinubu government and many state governments are pursuing massive projects like the Lagos-Calabar coastal road, existing inter-state and intra-state road networks are in deplorable condition. This is happening at a time when Nigeria’s public revenues have multiplied, thanks to the windfall from subsidy removal and naira devaluation.
Much like the Tinubu-led federal government, most state governments have turned public resources into a means to enrich the few in the corridors of power and their big business partners, often hiding behind large-budget projects that hardly address the immediate needs of the people.
Given this background, if given the opportunity today, a majority of Nigerians would gladly flush out the Tinubu government and its clones in the states. The tragedy of capitalist democracy, however, is that people have little to no influence on government—except through popular mass actions—outside of elections once every four years. The situation in Nigeria is worsened by the fact that if Nigerians were to vote Tinubu out today, no alternative within the existing political arrangements represents a genuine alternative.
WHAT DOES THE ADC COALITION REPRESENT?
Many are inclined to ask: what about the ADC coalition alternative? But can the ADC Coalition be considered a real opposition, given the character and antecedents of its promoters, their ‘alternative’ programme (if any), and their conduct and politics? Answering these questions underscores the fact that Nigerians must look beyond the bourgeois opposition if they wish to end this regime of suffering in the midst of plenty.
The fundamental principle behind the ADC Coalition is capturing power from Tinubu and the APC, not providing a serious alternative. The Coalition, which has tried many routes before settling on the ADC, is based not on opposition to the anti-masses economic policies or the civilian dictatorship of the Tinubu government, but on personal disaffection and political fallout with Tinubu himself. This is true for figures like Rauf Aregbesola, Nasir el-Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi, and Abubakar Malami, all of whom were major faces in the Muhammadu Buhari/APC government that ended just over two years ago. They played major roles in implementing the terrible policies that form the foundation of the current anti-poor programmes of the Tinubu government. Figures like Rauf Aregbesola, Rotimi Amaechi, and Nasir el-Rufai are former governors who spent eight years enriching the pockets of the wealthy few in power and big business, attacking workers’ rights and welfare, undermining social sectors, and plunging their states into debt. Furthermore, their politics were often violent.
Consider the case of el-Rufai, whose major grievance is his exclusion from the Tinubu government. A dyed-in-the-wool agent of the World Bank and IMF, his divisive and incendiary politics set Kaduna State on fire. His infamous policy of appeasing killer herdsmen remains a reference point for terrible politicking. To access foreign loans for white elephant projects, he destroyed social services, sacking thousands of workers, including teachers. His legacy, as later revealed by his successor, is one of indebtedness, massive looting, and divisive politics.
Another case is Rauf Aregbesola, a two-term governor of Osun State, former minister, and erstwhile right-hand man of Tinubu. His legacy in Osun State is one of huge indebtedness that still haunts the state; non-payment of workers’ salaries; the implementation of a terrible half-salary and half-pension scheme for workers and retirees; the collapse of social sectors like education and healthcare; and massive corruption. The state is still littered with abandoned projects, many of which had been substantially paid for. Aregbesola was a major strategist for the Tinubu political machine until the emergence of Gboyega Oyetola as governor in 2018—an election that was rigged but sanctioned by the Supreme Court. Oyetola is Tinubu’s cousin, and the political differences between Aregbesola and Oyetola, in which Tinubu sided with his cousin, were the major source of Aregbesola’s fallout with Tinubu. As governor, Aregbesola used state resources to serve the Tinubu political machine, leading to the economic haemorrhaging of the state.
Others like Rotimi Amaechi and Abubakar Malami are no better, if not worse, than those running the Tinubu government. Rotimi Amaechi was a two-term minister under Buhari and a two-term governor of Rivers State. His administration received over a trillion naira in revenues over eight years, yet social services and public infrastructure in most parts of the state were in terrible condition. Abubakar Malami was Buhari’s two-term Minister of Justice, and his leadership of the justice sector was marred by an unprecedented abuse of power and a disregard for the very laws it was supposed to protect.
How can such individuals represent a genuine alternative? It is no accident that there has been no serious articulation of alternative programmes distinct from what Tinubu offers. There cannot be, because these are people who have implemented the same or similar policies in the past, sometimes with more brutal force, as in the case of el-Rufai.
ATIKU AND OBI
Beyond these politicians are others like Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, who have crossed over from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) respectively. Beyond seeking power, these two politicians are not known to offer any serious alternatives to Tinubu’s anti-poor policies. As presidential candidates for the PDP and LP in the 2023 elections, both Atiku and Obi agreed with Tinubu on removing fuel subsidy and increasing fuel prices. Atiku specifically promised to sell off the national oil company, NNPCL, albeit to his friends. Obi promised that fuel subsidy removal would be one of his earliest decisions in his first hundred days in office. Clearly, Tinubu beat him to it by announcing subsidy removal on his first day. None of these politicians oppose capitalist policies like privatisation, currency devaluation, and a fraudulent contract system. Their social sector policies revolve around elitism. Atiku even promised to privatise the universities while Obi talked about transferring the management of public universities to corporate organisations!
Politically, the figures in the ADC Coalition are neck-deep in the rotten politics for which Nigerian bourgeois politicians are known. For instance, Atiku’s exit from the PDP was motivated not by principled opposition to the anti-poor policies of PDP governors or the conduct of PDP legislators, who support the same policies as their APC counterparts, but by his inability to control the party machinery to guarantee his presidential ticket. Obi, who claims to stand for a new, corruption-free politics, has no qualms about hobnobbing with the likes of el-Rufai, Malami, and David Mark. In reality, this is his political family. His rhetoric is merely aimed at hoodwinking change-seeking youths for votes. It is also clear that these politicians have never stood for workers or the oppressed. What are the plans of Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Aregbesola, el-Rufai, etc., on the minimum wage? What were their past actions concerning the minimum wage and workers’ welfare?
A GENUINE ALTERNATIVE COALITION IS POSSIBLE
The working people and the poor need a genuine alternative to the Tinubu civilian dictatorship, which is underpinned by IMF/World Bank-supported capitalist policies that are squeezing the poor dry while fattening the already wealthy few. The ADC Coalition does not offer such an alternative. The DSM stands for socialist programmes with genuine democracy. This means placing the major and commanding sectors of the economy—like oil and gas, mining, and the financial sector—under democratic public control and management. By this, we mean that the country’s major collective resources—natural and mineral resources, monetary resources—will be collectively owned by the people and not handed over to the likes of Dangote, BUA, Zenon, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and the banks. Instead, there will be democratic plans (both immediate and long-term) on how to use these resources to guarantee better lives for Nigerians and future generations. Democratic control means that workers, communities, relevant professional groups, etc., will have elected representatives in the decision-making organs of the ministries, agencies, departments, and enterprises managing these collective resources.Such representatives would be regularly elected, subject to rccall and not receive any special privileges. This will ensure that the planning and management of our public resources and economy are collective endeavours.
More practically, a socialist government would guarantee free and quality education and healthcare for all; a living wage for workers and retirees; decent jobs for all (with living unemployment benefits for those who cannot find work or are unable to work); developed infrastructure (sustainable and clean energy, a modern, efficient, and integrated transport system); and a modern, sustainable agriculture and agro-allied sector. These are achievable in the shortest possible time if our resources are collectively owned and the economy is geared towards people, not profit.
None of the mainstream capitalist political alternatives—the PDP, LP (as currently constituted), ADC, or SDP—can guarantee these programmes. This is why the DSM calls on workers, artisans, farmers, youths, the poor, change-seeking professionals and the middle class, pro-labour organisations, trade unions, and left-leaning organisations to join us in building a genuine mass political alternative to the rot represented by the APC, PDP, ADC, LP (as currently constituted), SDP, and others. We call on radical left parties and political structures, such as the Omoyele Sowore-led African Action Congress (AAC), the Seun Kuti-led Movement of the People (MOP), the National Conscience Party (NCP), the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), and the left faction of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), to join forces with socialist and left-leaning organisations like Joint Action Front, progressive trade unions and trade unionists to build a mass political platform to challenge the capitalist politicians. A platform that will not include political opportunists who have lost out in internal battles of pro-capitalist parties. Given the mass anger against the Tinubu/APC government and its clones in the states, and the readiness of working people and youth to fight for change, it is possible to translate this mass anger into an organised movement that can achieve political liberation within a short period.