On 25 February 2023, the Presidential and National Assembly elections took place. According to the result announced by the election official, Bola Tinubu, candidate of the ruling party, the “All Progressives Congress” (APC), was declared the winner of the presidential election with a total of 8,794,726 votes. This represents 36.61% of the total vote cast during the election, and less than 10% of the 93,4 million registered voters. Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the “Peoples’ Democratic Party” (PDP) came second with 6,984,520 votes. The “Labour Party’s” (LP) Peter Obi backed by its “OBIdient Movement” came third with a total of 6,101,533, and the “New Nigeria People Party’s” (NNPP) Rabiu Kwankwaso came fourth with 1, 496, 687 votes. In total only 27% of registered voters participated.
Already both the PDP and the Labour Party have announced their rejection of the election results as flawed and manipulated in favour of the winner, declaring their intention to legally challenge the declared results in court. The PDP with its candidate Atiku Abubakar even staged a protest march to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Abuja, insisting that the PDP “has the right to protest under the constitution, and it doesn’t stop us from going to court”. How easily members of the ruling class hold on to the rule of law, but when in power deny the working masses the same right. Obi’s attitude has been to urge the “Obidients” to remain calm, and conduct themselves peacefully, with an appeal to supporters to “respect the sanctity of the Court premises … and not turn it “into a rally ground”.
The country will definitely witness a legal tussle that will see both the PDP and LP unearthing evidence of the flawed nature of the polls and all of the many instances of violence, and box snatching. Even the complicity of the misnamed Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the delayed delivery of electoral materials, and the way in which they made a mess of its earlier promise to conduct a credible and transparent election by failing to upload in real time the result sheets from the polling units to the newly introduced “Bimodal Voter Accreditation System’s” (BVAS) viewing portal breaches the rules and guidelines the INEC had itself set for the conduct of elections.
But the judiciary is far from being a neutral organ of the state, its independence is only within the context of defending the sanctity of the state to act and defend the interest and actions of the ruling class and the powers that be. This has been the situation in the past, and which is why the APC and indeed Tinubu have been quoted as saying that those who had any issue/s with his victory should “go to the courts”.
We cannot but raise the question of whether the fourth republic is elastic enough to withstand this backlash following the flawed elections, or if booby-traps have been laid that can be easily employed by putschists or military adventurers to end the fourth republic. Or will a mass movement in resistance against the neoliberal capitalist policies of deregulation and privatization, which a Tinubu presidency will remain committed to, contend with it and develop the necessary consciousness to end the rule of capital and commence the march to a government of working people that will set about turning things around in the country in favour of the working masses.
Already the winner of the polls, Tinubu has issued a rallying call for unity in the ranks of the ruling class, that the elections are over and the need for all hands should be on deck to defend their mutual “democratic vision”. And to “former Vice President Atiku, former governor Kwankwaso, former governor Obi, I extend the hand of friendship”, he states.
The declaration of Tinubu as winner of the presidential polls has also been greeted by a message of congratulations from the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The US even goes to the extent of describing it as ushering “a new period for Nigerian politics and democracy”. And China is also not left out, with the Chinese president Xi Jinping congratulating the president-elect.
What flows from the above is that all the major power blocs of international capital and imperialism are positioning themselves to not be outdone by the other and to make more gains from the country in a manner that will exact the best advantage to the industrial west and China, to the clear disadvantage of the working masses, or any pursuit of industrial development for Nigeria. And painfully, for the country all wings of the ruling class in Nigeria are acting in full the role allotted to them by Imperialism and its agencies, the International Financial Institutions like the IMF and World Bank with their complete capitulation to neoliberal capitalist philosophical economic instructions to deregulate and privatize the key sectors of the economy and roll back the state from playing any role whatsoever in the running of the economy.
And this is where Socialists come forward and loudly proclaim that while sharing in all of the aspirations of the working masses for a different type of Nigeria that will seek to meet the aspirations and improve the lot and well-being of the working masses, many of whom voted for the LP or the Kwankwasiyya movement of the NNPP in the north, we do not share the illusions that this can be archived by either Obi or Kwankwaso or even a Tinubu Presidency or by returning Atiku’s PDP back to power. It is completely false to consign politics to a question of morals with captions like “integrity” and “character” becoming the defining hallmark as opposed to what philosophy or ideas will determine how the economy is controlled or managed.
Nor will the “emilokan” (it is my turn) philosophy which Tinubu used in his campaign in any way improve the lot of the working masses. The principle of rotation of office as promoted by a section of the ruling class only aims to guarantee that wing of the ruling class canvassing it access to governance and the wealth of the country. It does not meet the need to develop the means of production or the needs of the working masses for the development of regions. The fact that the working masses from across the divide are not different from each other, and suffer in common from all the neoliberal capitalist policies of deregulation and privatization is a pointer to the above.
Without a break from capitalism, the ruling class cannot turn the fortunes of the working masses around. But the ruling class has no basis to break with capitalism. They are comfortable with it, since they are ones benefiting from this system of greed and profit. A system that ensures the continued underdevelopment of the means of production so as make cheap and easy super profits from the export offor raw materials and import of goods and services for both international capital and the tiny number of members of the ruling class and their cronies, while the working masses are condemned to a life of misery and penury.
For a Party of the Working People
Only the working masses can organise to end capitalism nationally and internationally. But the very first step in this direction is the building of a party of the working people by the working masses that must not only be an electoral platform, standing candidates on a working-class programme, but also an organising platform to defend jobs, build new industries, and fight for access to publicly funded education, health care, and housing.
It must cut out for itself a character distinct from the bourgeois political formations, by standing candidates on the average wage of a skilled worker, who must be workers reps in all senses of the word, with the right of immediate recall for any elected public officers. Such a party must ultimately seek to gain power not only electorally, it should not delay a day longer from when it succeeds in mobilizing a majority of the working masses to its side as well as the rank and file of the military and police, by wasting no time in seizing the reigns of power from the ruling class.
We must next ask if the current LP can be transformed or won over to become such a party; a party for the working masses and completely under the democratic control of the working masses, and if this can be achieved. If anything can be said about the 2023 General elections, it is that Peter Obi’s entry to the presidential polls has validated the idea that the ruling class can be taken on and that a mass party can be built to take up this task. And that the LP which originally was formed by the trade unions can aspire to be a party for the whole of the working masses, with the working class playing the leadership role. This much has been known and proclaimed by Socialists long ago. And now we have witnessed how the working masses stood in the rain or even stayed up late at night to defeat the antics of the late delivery of electoral materials, so that 6 million votes were eventually cast for the LP.
This is despite the fact that Obi continues to be a representative of Big Business and an adherent of bourgeois economics and the ideology of capitalism. Nor does he subscribe to any working class idea or programme that aims to transfer power to the working people themselves so they can determine their own fate and destiny, since it is largely their labour that produces the wealth of the country. His 8 years rule of Anambra as governor and all of his unfriendly policies and attacks against workers demonstrate this. At best Obi puts forward the idea that he can better manage capitalism to function effectively if a frugal and non-extravagant character like himself is allowed to be president of Nigeria. Of course, this is a mirage, the same if not even more was said of Buhari before he was elected to power in 2015, and 8 years down the line the working masses are worse off. This is a consequence of the Buhari regime’s continued adherence to capitalism and failure to break away from it. How to make this clear to the 6 million who voted Obi’s LP without in anyway dismissing their craving for a different and better Nigeria is key in going forward. To persuade many to join and be active in the LP.
More than ever before there can be no more denial of the potential for a left-wing workers alternative in Nigeria. But painfully for the working masses, the labour leaders, as represented by Adams Oshiomhole, and recently led by the former Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president Ayuba Wabba have made a mockery of the involvement of workers in politics. For Oshiomhole, a former NLC President (1999–2007), labour involvement in politics, of which he himself is an example, meant joining a bourgeois political formation or any of the ruling class parties, and, once elected to office as governor of Edo state for 2 terms of 8 years doing nothing to make any fundamental improvement in the fortunes of the working people of Edo state or of the working class in the whole country. The same is true of Ayuba Wabba who even went to the ridiculous level of reducing workers to mere voters with the launch of a political charter with which to hold elected officers to account. There can be no greater declaration in building the LP than this. Indeed,this is the very attitude that made it possible for a billionaire like Obi to easily walk in to the LP and run on its ticket.
Can the working masses expect the NLC, now led by Joe Ajaero, to act differently? Can it go beyond the last-minute call for workers to vote for the LP, to fully organise workers to join the LP, and build it as a party for workers, and for trade unionist activists, socialists to join the ranks of the party and canvass for it to be a workers’ platform. The MSA calls on trade unions to set in motion the necessary machinery for workers to become active in the LP, to launch a programme of recruitment that will see workers become fully active in the party, and for it to anchor itself as an organ with which to defend the working masses, not just electorally, but to organise the workers, youth, student in its rank to defend themselves from all manners of attack against their wellbeing by members of the ruling class. The future of the LP is not yet decided, but to build the party, it needs a clear socialist programme, and a working-class method of struggle.
It is now very clear that Nigerians had misplaced their expectations that a Buhari regime would conduct a free and fair election against all existing odds and overwhelming evidence of the non-delivery of the “promised: change” by the APC-led regime and the glaring scorecard of failure in all facets and indices of governance. That it has now ensured that the APC continues in power should however not be strange to anyone, giving all of the intra-class conflicts and repositioning by various factions of the ruling class to best reposition themselves for the status quo to continue in power. It is obvious that the choice of Tinubu was arrived at by the primitive calculation of someone with enough blemishes to not rock the boat, and who could be as brutal as expected to deal the necessary decisive blows to the working masses in the face of any mass uprising against its rule as exemplified with his endorsement of the military crushing of the #EndSARS protest at the Lekki Toll gate in Lekki in October 2020.
Nor will the Governorship or the State Assemblies’ election be any different. What will remain at play is the dividing antics of the ruling classes with the use of religion, ethnic nationality and origin, violence, and thuggery to set the working masses against themselves. Even with its postponement by a week, how in hell had anyone expected that Buhari will succeed in conducting a free and fair election, with the cash crunch still biting hard, even with a supreme court judgement giving a legal nod to the use of the old currency, in the face of the inability of the Buhari regime to have provided the necessary cash flow. This is an indication of the poor state of the financial sector, lacking any plan to fundamentally develop the means of production outside of serving as a conduit pipe for the laundering of stolen wealth or engaging in speculation and false bubbles in the banking sector while leveraging the inflow of foreign currency with its dual exchange rate.
The past 24 years of the fourth republic are enough to overwhelming indicate that victory at the polls for any bourgeois politician is not and will not translate to any form of improvement in the well-being of the working masses. For health and education, the ruling class and family members will continue to fly abroad to access the best available worldwide and will make no commitment to improve these amenities here. The working masses must carry their cross, and build a party of themselves and for themselves. Organise to oppose deregulation, and with the programme not just to bring to public ownership all of the privatised national assets like electricity and communication, but to also bring the commanding sectors of the economy into full public control and management under a workers and farmers government. This is the only programme that can ensure that the working masses benefit from the wealth of the country, from its abundant oil, gas and minerals like gold that have now been discovered in huge quantities both in the north and south of the country, and to build new refineries with the wealth of the country to bring an end to the perennial fuel scarcity, and the mass unemployment which is the cause of the various social unrest providing oxygen for the state of insecurity in the country.
