Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)

For struggle, Solidarity and Socialism in Nigeria

Committee for a Workers' International

Home

Join DSM

Contact DSM

About us

Our Manifesto

Statements

Socialist Democracy

Newspaper of the DSM

Campaigns

NCP

Trade Unions

Students

Women

International

Downloads

email

Socialist Democracy September - October 2003

In June, soon after he was sworn in for a second term, President Obasanjo promised Nigerians that he was henceforth to be a brand new president. Three months after that statement was made, the Nigerian masses now know for better what it means to have a "born-again" president.

Rather than having a reprieve from the excruciating poverty and hardship which they experienced during Obasanjo's first term, the Nigerian working people and youth are facing new attacks on their living and working conditions by the Obasanjo regime and the state governments of the biggest pro-rich capitalist parties, the PDP, AD and ANPP. Many working class people who had mistakenly voted for these parties in the last elections for one reason or the other are now full of regret.

The first big salvo against the working masses from the regime was the 82% hike in fuel prices which provoked nationwide protests and an eight-day general strike by the trade unions. Though the regime was compelled to reduce the increment to 54%, it is warning again that another fuel price increase might come soon in order to ensure "regular supply" as they often claim. In actual fact, petrol can be obtained at the official price of N34 in only Lagos and Abuja while in all parts of the country diesel and kerosine are selling for as much as between N48-N60 instead of N34 and N32 per litre respectively. The result has been escalation in the price of goods and services, hike in the cost of living and more suffering for the downtrodden masses.

Furthermore, if the regime has its way, thousands of public sector jobs will disappear over the next four years as the government plans another round of retrenchment in the federal public service. In the Nigerian Railways Corporation alone, 50% of its workforce are to be sacked in order to prepare the corporation for privatisation.

In continuation of its policies which enrich the wealthy few while further impoverishing the poor working masses, the privatisation of Nigeria Airways, the railways, NEPA, steel mills, and other public companies under which public assets will be sold to multinational corporations and the local capitalists at rock-bottom prices are to be pursued with more vigour. Thousands of jobs will be erased to enable the sharks who are buying up our collective wealth to make maximum profits. And as if to display his unwavering commitment to the implementation of the anti-poor, neo-liberal capitalist policies of the IMF and the World Bank, Obasanjo has appointed a former IMF top official as the new finance minister.

Politically, the country is not fairing better. We are repeatedly being told that the country is practising "democracy". But what type of democracy is it in which the governments of all the ruling parties conspired and refuse to organise elections into local governments since December 2002? Instead, they have, in contravention of the constitution and the democratic rights of the electorate, appointed their cronies into "caretaker committees" to run and loot local councils. In some cases, these hand-picked individuals are politicians who are candidates of these elitist parties for local council elections. What a brazen rape on our democratic rights! This is aside from the unprecedented rigging and manipulations that characterised the last general elections.

The ordinary Nigerian continues, on a daily basis, to suffer harassments, brutalities and other violations of their rights from the police and other security agencies. The beating of a journalist with the Daily Independent newspaper into a state of coma by armed mobile policemen attached to vice-president Atiku Abubakar, at the recent coronation ceremony of the new Oba of Lagos, is a typical example of what an average Nigerian experiences on a regular basis. The same "executive lawlessness" could be seen in the invasion of the Ojota motor garage by armed policemen acting on the order of the Lagos State government.

Meanwhile, the Obasanjo regime and all sections of the capitalist ruling class in general have no solution to the innumerable socio-economic crises confronting the country. The economy continues to stagnate and unemployment is on the rise. Hundreds of people have been killed in the renewed wave of communal violence in the Warri area. But while the ruling class puts the rest of us on poverty ration and creates conditions that breed ethnic and religious conflicts, they live opulently through their super-profit, huge salaries and allowances, and billions of naira earned from kickbacks from inflated contracts.

But all the rottenness outlined above are basically the inevitable manifestations of a chronically sick neo-colonial capitalist system. Like in all capitalist societies, the goal of economic management and governance is not to satisfy the needs of majority of the populace particularly the working people, but to maximise profits and increase the wealth of a minority rich few. That is why the system means unending poverty, misery and hardship for overwhelming majority of the society in the midst of potential abundance. Uplifting the living standards of the masses and improving education, health, housing, roads and providing other basic necessities is the last in the calculations of these capitalist vampires.

About 15 years ago, Obasanjo tried to make name for himself by criticising the SAP policies (deregulation, commercialisation, privatisation, currency devaluation, etc) of the General Babangida regime which inflicted enormous hardship on the poorest sections of the populace. He called for "SAP with human face." A decade and a half later, a regime of the same Obasanjo, based as it is on the capitalist system, has been busy implementing the same anti-poor, pro-rich policies and programmes. This, more than anything, shows that there is no hope for a better life for the working masses under this system.

Therefore, the working masses and our organisations - the trade unions, NLC, NANS, NCP, etc. - must brace up to resist the renewed attacks on our rights and living standards by the ruling class and the Obasanjo administration. We must never be tired in organising mass protests, industrial actions and campaigns in the community, to fight against the renewed capitalist economic and political onslaughts on the working people. The trade unions and the NLC leadership in particular must put in place and implement a comprehensive programme of mass mobilisation and action to stop privatisation and the retrenchment of workers. The massive eight-day general strike in July against the hike in fuel price shows the enormous power of the working people and their readiness to fight for their rights if the leadership of the working class organisations are prepared to give the necessary lead.

But above all, these new attacks on the poor people by the ruling class raises, once again, the need for the labour movement to provide an alternative socio-economic and political agenda different from and fundamentally opposed to the capitalist system. More than ever before, there is an urgent need to build an independent mass working people's political party with a democratic socialist programme. Such a party will have to unequivocally reject and be implacably opposed to capitalism and its anti-poor policies if it is to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the suffering majority. The satisfaction of human needs and not the greed of a wealthy few must form the basis of its programme, with the public ownership of the commanding sectors of the economy, such as the big industries, oil companies and banks, under the democratic control and management of the working class. Such a political party is what is needed as a platform to both mobilise mass resistance against the capitalist attacks on the working people and build a mass movement to transform society along socialist line.

Only a workers� and poor peasants� government formed by such a party can implement the necessary socialist measures enumerated above.

We in the Democratic Socialist Movement call again on the leadership of the NLC and trade unions to stop giving any form of support for the Obasanjo regime and other capitalist governments, policies and parties. Instead, a special conference of trade unions, students' unions, community organisations, women and youth groups, socialists, working people�s organisations like the National Conscience Party (NCP), etc, should be organised, as a matter of urgency, to discuss how to build an independent working people�s political platform. The NCP leadership should also take initiatives along this direction. This is the only way that can lead to a permanent end to the vicious cycle of fuel price increases, mass retrenchment, mass poverty, communal clashes, corruption and political instability.

Socialist Democracy September - October 2003