Peluola Adewale, DSM organising secretary (CWI Nigeria)
It is no news that the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has been declared the winner of the presidential election held on 25 February. He received only 8.8 million votes – just 37% of the total votes cast. It is also significant that only 27% of registered voters turned out to vote in the election, a decline from the 2019 figure of 35%, and the lowest in Nigerian history. This means that Tinubu was elected by less than 10% of those who have permanent voter’s cards. Essentially, he will rule with an abject minority government which will, sooner or later, be faced with crises and mass opposition.
The low turnout largely shows mass disenchantment with the electoral process following the failure of the previous APC Buhari government and its predecessors to provide basic necessities, plus a lack of belief among the vast majority of the electorate in the leading capitalist candidates to do any better. Even in Anambra, the home state of Peter Obi – who was presented as the best capitalist candidate in local and international media, and truly enjoyed support based mostly on illusions from sections of urban youth and middle-class people – the turnout was 24%, less than the national average.
Obi’s promise to improve the economy resonated with layers of the masses while his seemingly austere lifestyle in comparison with others was also a factor. But his commitment to the pursuit of capitalist programmes which would ultimately translate into attacks on the working class and the poor, cannot be overlooked.
Despite winning the presidential election, Tinubu lost in Lagos, the state where he holds a fierce political grip and is considered the ‘lord of the manor’. While Obi, who won the state, has a mass base among Igbo people, significantly his campaign appealed to all the ethnic groups in Lagos.
By and large, Obi’s victory in Lagos on a Labour Party (LP) platform is significant for a number of reasons. Lagos is not just the economic hub of Nigeria, it is the home of the organised working class and urban middle class. It was also the main theatre of the EndSARS youth revolt three years ago.
However, outside Lagos and a few other states like Osun and Benue where results reflected the prevailing local politics, the result of the election shows a significant ethnic and religious pattern. Different sections of capitalist elites exploit ethnic and religious divisions, accentuated by the unresolved national question, to win support on a sectarian basis for their own self-serving interests.
Flawed election
The election was characterised by irregularities and pockets of violence including voter intimidation, vote suppression and physical assaults in many places, especially in Lagos, Rivers and Kano states. The inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload the results in real-time raises a serious question about the transparency of the process. The leading opposition candidates – Atiku Abubakar of the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and Obi of the LP have rejected the results, alleging rigging and manipulation by the APC and INEC.
We condemn rigging, violence and other irregularities in this election. In reality, the electoral process was rigged in favour of leading capitalist parties at the expense of radical parties which could genuinely represent the aspiration of working people and youth like Socialist Party Nigeria (SPN), which has been undemocratically deregistered.
The Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM, CWI Nigeria) stands for the rights of those disenfranchised and those whose votes were not allowed to count due to manipulations, technical problems and violence. We support any public meetings, rallies, protests and demonstrations, alongside the judicial efforts, to challenge the process and outcome of the election.
Sowore and Obi
While sympathising with those who, because of their burning desire to get rid of the rotten establishment, invested illusions in Peter Obi for the transformation of Nigeria, DSM did not call a vote for him. Given his history as a former state governor and and his consistent pro-capitalist policies, Obi was not a real ‘friend’ of labour let alone a workers’ leader. Instead, we critically supported and called for a vote for Omoyele Sowore of the African Action Congress (AAC) who put forward elements of the socialist programme needed to transform Nigeria.
Despite this however, we cannot dismiss the effect that Obi’s limited critique of corruption and anti-establishment rhetoric had on the working masses and radical youth, both before and during the elections.
It shows the masses’ burning desire for a transformative change after eight years of Buhari’s failed regime. That a pro-capitalist Obi, and a Labour Party without real workers’ membership, has managed to become a symbol of this change-seeking mood, is another testament to the complicated, yet revolutionary, potential of the situation.
Currency crisis
However, while the presidential election is over, the cash crunch as a result of the policies of the Buhari government, which came to a head shortly before the election, is getting worse. Main streets and markets are largely deserted, not largely as a result of the post-election tension but due to lower economic activities caused by a shortage of Naira (Nigerian currency). A report in the Punch newspaper revealed that, as of the end of January, the Nigerian central bank had reduced the currency in circulation from N3.29 trillion in October 2022 to N1.38 trillion.
The acute shortage of Naira, together with the fuel scarcity which has not fully abated, has worsened the pre-existing economic hardship suffered by working people and the poor.
The leaderships of both the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) refused to organise action over the deep hardship or provide leadership when pockets of protest broke out across the country before the election. Now, the crisis is getting more excruciating for the working masses, while there is no end in sight.
We call on the leaderships of NLC and TUC to and organise mass action, including a 24-hour warning general strike as the first step, that could force the Buhari government to end the current shortage of Naira as well as petrol scarcity.
Resist Tinubu’s anti-poor policies
NLC and TUC, working people, youth and pro-masses organisations have to be prepared to resist the anti-poor economic policies Tinubu has stated that he would implement in his election speeches and manifesto. These include increases in petrol prices under the guise of deregulation or scrapping the so-called subsidy and devaluation of Naira.
Tinubu also plans to impose high tuition fees and introduce a student loan scheme ostensibly to tackle the crisis of funding of public universities and workers’ strikes. This must be resisted by students, working people and trade unions as it will deny children from a working-class and poor background access to university education or burden them with lifelong debt.
He is also an anti-labour politician, sacking militant union leader Ayodele Akele, and many workers, over their struggle for the minimum wage when he was governor of Lagos state.
Most importantly, such a struggle against Tinubu’s anti-poor capitalist plan, which Atiku and Obi also fundamentally subscribe to, has to be linked with the building of a mass working people’s party on a socialist programme. We call for a conference involving NLC, TUC, individual trade unions, left coalitions, left parties and socialist organisations to discuss the country’s crises and what to do. In addition to preparing for the struggle to resist the current hardship and the planned attacks, to discuss the building of such a party or the possibility of rebuilding and democratising the Labour Party, with a view of transforming it into a genuine, democratically run, mass workers’ party.
Labour Party
We welcome the statement of Joe Ajaero, the new NLC President, that the NLC “will be involved in politics”, and note his claim that the NLC “had a political party: the Labour Party”. But for this to really happen the NLC and TUC must ensure that the Labour Party has a clear pro-working class and poor programme, that it is fully democratic and stops the outrageous policy of charging fees to stand in any party election, a policy which automatically excludes working people from leading and running the party. Ajaero has also rightly said that LP National Assembly members must work to “stop any anti-labour bills”.
LP representatives at all levels, federal and state, must be consistently called upon to stand with the working class during struggle and strikes, and to resist all anti-poor policies, otherwise, they will be shown to be ‘labour’ in name only. Putting forward such a programme shows what a genuine LP representative should fight for, and if it proves impossible to transform the LP, a campaign should start to build a genuine working people’s party.
Fight for socialist change
Stormy times are ahead. All classes and ages in Nigeria are fearful of the future. The DSM is not alone in seeing the many crises afflicting Nigeria but we have confidence in the ability of Nigerians, especially the workers and youth, to struggle to both win improvements now and to support the idea of socialist change to get rid of the capitalist system that is both blocking Nigeria’s development and threatening the world’s future.
