Nigerians Should Expect More Mass Protests – Baba Aye*

You are a Co-Convener of the Coalition for Revolution (CORE) that organised peaceful protests across the country for a revolution that was expected to usher in a positive change in the lives of Nigerians. What is the state of CORE and the other affiliates now?

The series of peaceful protests you are talking about comprise the #RevolutionNow campaign, which was launched on 5 August 2019 with a nationwide #DayOfRage protest. The campaign helped to catalyse the reawakening of a spirit of revolt against the oppressive rule of the APC in particular and the exploiter ruling class and their repressive apparatus in general. It contributed significantly to igniting the #EndSARS rebellion in October 2020.

A lot has happened since, with both the coalition and its affiliates. CORE unfurled the campaign in the wake of a resolution adopted by the African Action Congress (AAC). The Take It Back movement of the AAC, as you know, was a member-organisation of CORE. In fact, it was one of the two blocs that constituted the coalition. CORE started as the TIB-AMPA Coalition. Socialist groups that were active in the National Conscience Party (NCP) before the formation of AAC in 2018 formed AMPA, which stood for Alliance for the Masses Political Alternative. The aim was to deepen socialist ideas and politics in AAC which was evolving at the time as a radical reformist party.

Today, AAC is a revolutionary party with radical eco-socialist and Pan-Africanist politics. The TIB cadre of AAC is now ideologically clearer and politically more adroit as revolutionaries. A series of CORE political education processes contributed to this as well as ongoing TIB movement education programme. The fire of praxis has also forged the steel of AAC as the revolutionary party of any significance in the country.

TIB is no longer an affiliate of CORE, formally speaking. But it will continue to cooperate with the coalition, including on the #RevolutionNow campaign. The CORE affiliates which at the national level include the Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations of Nigeria (FIWON), Socialist Workers League (SWL), Movement for Africa’s Emancipation (MAE) and Pan-African Consciousness Renaissance (PACOR) are also redoubling efforts at building CORE. This includes plans to consolidate on the formation of CORE State Chapters.

Was the situation in Nigeria five years ago when #RevolutionNow was launched different from what obtains now? If so how?

The situation has gone from very bad, to terribly worse, confirming the argument of #RevolutionNow activists that we could have only one lasting solution to the situation of impoverishment of the poor masses: revolution to win our total liberation from the ruling class. Working-class people have never had it so bad as is the case now, in our history. The cost-of-living has become unbearable. To feed, even on a zero-one-zero daily basis, has become harder for millions of Nigerians. Children and wards of the poor are being priced out of access to public education with sharp rises in tuition fees at our universities and other tertiary educational institutions. And to say the state of insecurity is alarming now would be an understatement. People are being kidnapped or waylaid and killed at a rate that would have been unbelievable for the undiscerning five years ago, despite the fact that even then the situation was already worrisome.

But despite all this, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu claims that all is well with the economy. And he is not alone in saying so. His imperialist masters have also lauded his bold steps in pushing through neoliberal reforms such as removal of the fuel subsidy in a way that no earlier government had done and gotten away with. And you must remember that there was a consensus around these neoliberal reforms by the four major parties representative of capital during their electoral campaigns. Be it PDP, APC or the obidient LP, they all stand for the same thing. They serve the interests of capital, the profit-motive which drives the politics of the 1% who get from this dog-eat-dog system.

Comrade Omoyele Sowore who was arrested five years ago was recently granted total freedom by the courts after he was arrested, detained, his movement restricted and faced treason felony charges. How do you feel about his hard-earned freedom?

It is more of an anti-climax, with tons of shame for the APC regime, if it were capable of shame. It was clear from the start that the state merely used the law to repress Sowore and the AAC. But he stood boldly against them and the party flourished instead of being bowed. That been said, there are a quite a few points of historical significance regarding this case, which I put in perspective in an article on the Socialist Workers League website. Top on the list is that history has in such a short time absolved #RevolutionNow campaigners, to borrow from that great speech of Fidel Castro on 16 October 1953. Even the capitalist courts have had to rule that is a democratic right to call for revolution. Meanwhile, some people on the left had only expletives for us in August 2019.

Finally, on this matter, I must salute Ope, Sowore’s wife and their children. They were strong for him in this period. But it definitely was not easy. Beyond the political, I daresay they are heroes of this ruthless suppression of not only Sowore’s right to movement, but consequently impinging for half a decade on his ability to be there with his family.

If the opportunity presents itself again, would you say that those coalitions could come together again to lead the masses once more to fight for a better future?

Organisations and coalitions are vehicles. The movement is that of the mass of the people. While it is not automatic that there will always be the required or most fit-for-purpose vehicle, history shows that there will always be some vehicle or the other formed, even in the heat of spontaneity. If you look at the recent protests against widespread hunger in the land for example, the first wave of these erupted spontaneously, led by men and mostly women who were fed up with bearing the burden of suffering for a system that works for just a few, and stood up to say enough is enough.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This is not a glorification or fetishisation of spontaneity. While the opening act of most revolutionary situations in history is spontaneous, it takes the vehicle of organisation, often as coalitions, for the oppressed to win the good fight and break their chains. But it is not only spontaneity that is not to be worshipped. Sometimes, the same organisation or coalition comes together again, as you put it, at different moments in the working masses' struggle. Sometimes, different organisations and coalitions arise at different moments of that struggle. A good example is with the June 12 struggle.

Don’t forget that the initial coalition at the vanguard of the popular mobilisation was the Campaign for Democracy (CD). But it lost its way at some point in time, when it momentarily chose to give military coupists under Sani Abacha the benefit of the doubt, because MKO Abiola took that position. There was a lull for a while between 1995 and 1997, when the United Action for Democracy (UAD) was formed. It was UAD that organised the “5 Million Man March” against Abacha in 1998 and led the rest of the struggle until the military had to step aside.

It is not given if it will be the same or different organisations or coalitions that play the leading role of vehicles for the popular struggle of the people. Playing such role has to be earned in the theatre of struggle itself. It requires building a critical mass of clearheaded and disciplined activists with deep roots in the people, to successfully live up to the requirements of such a leadership role.

Labour and Civil Society have been calling out the masses for peaceful hunger  protests in the face if biting poverty and hardship which has left the citizens prostrate. How successful would you say these protests have been?

First let me highlight the fact that even before organised labour and the radical civil society called for mass protests, the people themselves had taken to the streets. It was the same thing in 2012 with #OccupyNigeria. Contrary to the ego trip that we tend to give ourselves as activists, we did not start that January Uprising. Within 24 hours of President Goodluck Jonathan’s New Year Day announcement of the fuel pump price hike there had been spontaneous protests across several cities. This was before the 3 January protest of radical civil society in Lagos that year.

Now, back to the question of how successful or not the protests have been. Take note of the fact that its barely a month since the first of the spontaneous protests and less than two weeks since the protests organised by the trade unions and civil society. It’s thus morning yet on creation day, to borrow from Chinua Achebe. There will most likely be more battles ahead. The struggle continues until victory is won.

As a veteran activist and former NLC Lagos State Chair, how do you see the performance of Labour and Civil Society in this dispensation? Would you say they have lost the bite?

I do have a singular place in our collective movement’s history, which gives me a vantage view and also weighs heavily on my mind. In this century at least, I am probably the only revolutionary socialist that has simultaneously played leading roles in one way or the other in the trade unions, radical civil society movement and even the Labour Party for a decade and a half. This, as well as my background as a student of labour relations and history  probably enables me to take a less emotive analysis of the place and roles of the trade union movement.

Trade unions are the primary economic defence organisation of the working class. Trade union consciousness is aimed at winning concessions from the capitalists and not for the revolutionary transformation of society by supplanting the capitalist system with the revolutionary establishment of socialism. The trade union bureaucracy, encompassing  organised labour’s leadership play a mediatory role between the rank-and-file workers and the capitalists, based on this form of consciousness.

With this perspective, one can better understand why and how this bureaucracy operates. This is not to defend or condemn them. It is about understanding first and foremost, as an objective basis for evaluation of what is done or not done. With that point of departure, while I do have issues with some of the strategic positions taken by the current leadership of organised labour, I think it will be uncharitable to dismiss the bite it brings to bear as you put it.

Do you think the nation's Leftist Movement is strong and virile enough to unite under one umbrella to snatch power from the current ruling class  which are supported by neoliberal groups at home and abroad?

This is a very good question, following up on your last. The state of the left is one of the main reasons why what the trade union bureaucracy does or does not do is what primarily defines anything of significance, if we could call such so, on the part of most leftists and their groups. They try to make crutches of the trade unions for our own ill-formed political legs, instead of reaching out to and extending deep roots into the rank-and-file of workers and other grassroots strata of the working people.  

Apart from the AAC/TIB there is no strand of the left with national spread and a significant critical mass of membership. Yet, ego-driven sectarianism is rather rife in the movement. However, revolutionary struggle has never been waged by perfect people. Revolutions themselves lead not only to the overthrow of the ruling class. The praxis of revolutionary struggle itself serves as a basis for the rebirth of what Che Guevara described as the new man. Similarly, building the vehicle of organisation for revolution has not been a task fulfilled anywhere simply because everybody sense correct and the egos or narratives of some leftists and their organisations are not a thousand and one times larger than whatever extent they have or can ever have to move the needle on history’s clock. We must build with what with have.

That been said, I would also want to debunk the myth of the need for a monolithic body of organisation for revolution, or under one umbrella as you put it. I often hear a number of comrades, particularly younger ones arguing that the problem with Nigeria’s left is because we are not united, we are not in one body. But this is a conflation of two things that do not necessarily have to be the same thing. The broadest possible unity is crucial. But not only does this not mean under one umbrella, the simple reality is that it is the exception and not the rule, even where revolutions have triumphed, for all leftists to be under the same organisational umbrella. One can also say that it is neither feasible nor desirable. In fact, differences of organisations, where based on differences of principles, perspectives or methods are not only legitimate. They are also necessary to deepen our collective understanding and praxis through debates where there is mutual respect and focus on the primary things that unite us.

So, I would say that rather than one umbrella we should be talking of united fronts, including the united fronts of coalitions. That is what we as CORE have been calling for since 2020. And I am happy that this is gradually taking shape as demonstrated during the national protests in February. CORE and JAF, the Joint Action Front, stood together to organise rallies and demonstrations, starting a day before that called by the NLC. This is the way to go and should be seen as the nucleus of joint work in striking together against the ruling class in our shared struggle for system change.

The ruling class in Nigeria, as with anywhere there is revolution, will always have the support of imperialism and the capitalist class across the world. But that in itself will not stop the tide of revolutionary waves from sweeping away this obsolete class that has become a brake on social progress, when its time is up. As Victor Hugo said; “no force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.”

*my interview on today's Sunday Independent (10 March 2024)

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