…says Nigerians boxed into tribal, religious divides

….warns of destructive antics of neoliberal democracy

By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja

ON the heels of the outcome of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections, a socialist transformation movement, Campaign for the Socialist Transformation of Nigeria, CAST-Nigeria, yesterday, said it warned Nigerians over undependability of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and presidential candidates of political parties.

CAST-Nigeria made this known in a statement with subject, ‘Nigeria’s 2023 General Elections: Understanding the Crisis of “Elections” in the context of a crisis of Neoliberal Capitalist Accumulation’ and signed by Chair, CAST-NIGERIA Campaign Organisation, Prof Omotoye Olorode, and National Coordinator, CAST-NIGERIA, Comrade Jaye Gaskia.

According to CAST-Nigeria, “Prior to the conduct of the February 25th Presidential and National Assembly elections, we had been categorical and clear about the absence of any meaningful option on the ballot for the overwhelming majority of working masses and Youths.

“We had pointed out that the common thread binding the main contending candidates and parties together, were their fidelity to neo-liberalism, and the united belief in the private sector as the engine of growth, and in the magical powers of the market to enable development.

“We had pointed out that given the lack of difference in the policy orientation of the candidates and parties, that they would be left with no option but to seek to mobilise support on the basis of ethnic, religious and geopolitical differences and grievances.

“The conduct and outcome of the elections have borne out our fears. We have always insisted that Liberal Democracy, especially at the peripheries of neoliberal capitalism is blackmail and a fraud orchestrated against the victims of capitalist accumulation.

“Its two alleged rights (1) right to vote for any candidate of one’s choice; and (2) right of every citizen to be voted for—are essentially illusions and frauds. The ruling class—the moneyed class, decides the candidates; and money decides who can be voted for!

“In this election for instance, it was not possible for a Mass Party of Working People and Youth, with a socialist ideology, committed to working towards the socialist transformation of Nigeria, to be registered and to participate in the elections; nor was it possible for working people, toiling masses, revolutionaries, and or socialists to be fielded as candidates in the election.”

The group also maintained that, “The underdevelopment, or rather degeneracy of the popular mass movement regarding consistent organising and capacity, in a way, has contributed to our increased faith not only solely in parliamentary, and the attendant electoral processes, but also even seeking shortcuts through latching on the coattails of supposedly progressive parties and personalities.

“We must admit that there are limitations in the electoral road to working class power, and in particular in a strategy that excludes all other possible roads to power, notwithstanding the visibility that electoralism enables for working class struggles.

“In these regards, it bears reiteration that liberal democracy is not a working-class invention, for its own use. It is a concession wrestled from, and controlled by, the ruling class just like wage labour from slavery.

“The concession simply enables the ruling class to carry on with accumulation as it enables them to also resolve some of their intra-class contradictions through the agency of their negotiation blocks they call political parties.

“The outcome of the electioneering manoeuvres of the various factions of the ruling class towards the presidential and national assembly elections have been the enabling of ethnic gladiators, irredentist, and jingoists, who are now more overtly accusing one another of hegemonic ambitions, and who are resorting to more blunt mutually antagonistic ethnic mobilisations, across the country. In so doing, they are perpetuating and deepening the divisions among ordinary workers and Nigerians.

“Their sole purpose is to prevent the working people and toiling masses and youth of Nigeria from understanding the class character of the crisis and of the hardships being imposed on them, and thus prevent the class unity and solidarity of the oppressed and exploited. Workers and the toiling masses are thus being pushed to unite along ethnic and geopolitical and religious lines, rather than class lines, such that rather than fight our common oppressors, we shall be fighting each other.

“Three political parties in the 2023 General Elections attracted the attention of the left generally. Among them, Labour Party has the distinction of having two distinct, indeed antagonistic manifestoes. The Party’s manifesto is, at best, social democratic.

“The manifesto of the Presidential candidate of LP, as predicted from Obi’s ideological track, is through-going neoliberal. No one in LP is known, until a few days to the election, to have articulated this fundamental issue. To put it bluntly then Obi’s LP is ideologically on the same side with Tinubu’s APC, Atiku’s PDP, and Kwankwanso’s NNPP!

“As we insisted before, and for those committed to socialist Transformation of Nigeria, Socialism was not on the ballot; certainly not effectively!

“The socialists in Nigeria need to figure out how to undo the massive damage that the ruling class divide-and-rule ideology and the vacillation of organised labour had done to the solidarity of Nigeria’s working people.

“And what were Nigerian people forced to vote for in this election? Regional divisions: (North, South, East, West; etc.), Religion (Christian, Muslim, Muslim/Muslim, Christian/Muslim etc.) and ethnicity; alleged competence/incompetence; technocracy; old people/young people, etc. And, of course, all under the control of big pockets!

“Hardly any serious issue was allowed to be raised about, or how to address, in pro-people terms, unemployment, minimum wage, the sale of Nigeria under the banner of privatisation; the neo-liberal capitalist foundation of the war on Nigerian industry and national currency; privatisation of education, health-care delivery and even security especially of life; the escalating levels and the loads of debt that already compromised our future!”

However, CAST Nigeria reiterated its commitment to be “more than ever before, must be towards redoubling our efforts towards the building of a Mass Working Peoples and Youth Party, on the basis of a socialist program, and one that is revolutionary, and has organic relationship with other organisations of the working class and working peoples, in particular the trade unions.

“This is the road ahead for the working people. We urge that we harness our anger and disillusionment, and channel this energy towards the building of our own Mass Political Movement and Party, in our own image, and in the pursuit of our own class interests.

“In conclusion, we are convinced as the slogan of our Movement states that A New Nigeria Is Possible, that through our collective and concerted efforts, we can build a Mass Workers and Youth Movement and Party that will acquire the autonomous capacity to act, that can challenge the ruling class parties, and that can lead our people to take political power, and begin to organise the process of socialist transformation of our country.”

Meanwhile, CAST Nigeria called on the “working people and toiling masses not to succumb to any attempts to divide our ranks along ethnic, religious or geopolitical lines.”

It also counseled aggrieved politicians and supporters to exhaust all available means and avenues available under the Electoral Law and Constitution in pursuant of their alleged stolen mandate instead of throwing the country into full blown crisis.