On General Elections in Nigeria

GENERAL ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA:
PERSPECTIVE FOR THE LABOUR MOVEMENT*
by Baba Ayelabola**


1.0 INTRODUCTION
It gives me great pleasure to present this paper at a critical point in the history of Nigeria . When Comrade Kessie Moodley told me a few days back to “think of” writing a paper on “the Nigerian Elections; lessons for the trade unions”. I had mixed feelings.

The time I had considering earlier tasks on ground that had to be consummated before the MHWUN study tour to South Africa was quite short. On the other hand, I felt it was a germaine opportunity for us to collectively reflect on “the national tragedy” that the recent poll was, with a view to sharpening our understanding on “what is to be done?” and more importantly; challenging us to necessary action based on working class perspective of the situation.
I have taken the liberty to sort of broaden the title the paper would have had to cover the Labour Movement and not just the trade unions. This conscious decision was borne out of the realization that a narrow trade union perspective would hardly be adequate on issues that bear on state power and for a perspective that is hinged on the quest for social change.

The main contents of the paper are in five sections.
In the first of these sections we will attempt to set the parameters for defining democracy, and its relationship with elections and electoral systems.

We shall look at Labour in relation to (the struggle for) power and politics in Nigeria . We shall be concerned with defining the differences between organized labour (or trade unions) and the labour movement showing their overlapping but asynonymous jurisdictions. We shall then consider how labour has viewed its socio-political role and its position(s) on state power as against workplace power.




We shall subsequently consider general elections in Nigeria from 1959 to 2003. This shall be quite useful for us to better appreciate the catastrophic drama that marked the conduct of the 2007 elections.

The 2007 polls would then be summarily X-rayed. The role(s) of the Labour Party and the broader labour movement in the elections would be examined.

Based on the following we shall hazard a diagnosis - especially as it bears on the labour movement - and possible prognosis of prospects for workers power in Nigeria .

2.0 DEMOCRACY, ELECTIONS AND ELECTORAL SYSYTEMS
2.1 What is democracy?
Democracy as we all know is derived from the Greek words “Demos” (people) and “Kratos” (power). It literally means people’s power or power by the people. This is not surprising, considering the fact that the first of democracies was established in Athens in the 6th Century before the Christian era.

Plato had pointed out that there were four possible forms of exercising governance. These according to turn were Monarchy (rule by an individual) Oligarchy (rule by a small elite), Timarchy (rule by a race or ethnic group) and Democracy (rule by the whole people). His greatest student, Aristotle went a step further to show how monarchy could degenerate into tyranny, oligarchy into aristocracy and democracy into plutocracy. We might only add that the Boers were to show the world how timarchy could be apartheid.

Athenian democracy was rooted in the acceptance of INSONOMIA which stands for equality of political rights. This equality of political rights was however limited only to free-born Athenian males. Thus the slaves and women were excluded from the political equality.

Athenian democracy which involved all (free born, male) citizens and which is considered to be the most democratic of all democracies in the history of the human race, actually excluded two thirds of the residents of Athens, for the simple reason that they were slaves or they were women.

As it was in the beginning, so is now. Inspite of the popular Lincolnian definition of democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, there has been no democracy that has included the entire population as the people that the government is “by” or “for”.

Democracy as a form of government very much like other less “popular” forms of government is actually a means of establishing the dictatorship of the dominant class in the form of a state.

The forms of government that a state dorns, and indeed the character of a state itself, are not abstractly determined by the ruling class. Like classes themselves, states and their governments evolve through a process of political development, political revolutions and counter revolutions, social revolutions and transformations. The state being a superstructure is shaped by the socio-economic substructure (level of development of productive forces and property relations) and the dialectical inter-play of contending and conjunctive cultural, national and international trends and forces.

The Athenian democracy was based on the slave-owning mode of production. It was soon replaced by tyranny. The republic in Rome which was the succeeding empire to Greece in the slave-owning age of antiquity was also dispersed by the dictatorship of Caesar and for a millennium and a half feudal rule reigned in Europe till the 1789 French revolution proclaimed a democratic republic on the slogans of “ Liberty , equality and fraternity”.

Liberal democracy is the primary form of state of modern industrial society. It is primarily the means for the capitalist governance of society, engendering the flourishing of capital, within the nation-state.

The process of accumulation of capital, however, drives globalization. This has led to the establishment and redefinition of institutions of international governance. This of course has consequences for what is understood as democracy and what is understood as the state.

An excursion into these consequences and sundry matters, however, is beyond the scope of our present discourse.

We could sum up on liberal democracy by pointing out that, while the people (i.e. the majority of the population) is supposed to determine how they are governed, and also are supposed to have equal rights to participate in governance, the facts and reality show such to be a mere façade. Only millionaires (or billionaires) in both developed and developing countries have the wherewithal to participate in the process of electioneering necessary to form a government beyond merely being voters or footsoldiers. It is also pertinent to note that the capitalists in power have shown time and again that they could be less bothered about the prevailing public opinion in formulating and implementing policies. A glaring example is the initiation and prosecution of war in Iraq by the American (and British) governments despite the protests of millions of citizens in those countries.

The fact of the matter is that even in the most developed of capitalist democracies, the equality of political rights is restricted to that of Franchise. And even this is many a time manipulated by the bourgeois power that be.

In 1871, once again in France , working people showed that there could be another form of democracy, in the Paris commune, workers democracy was concretely given birth to as a possible reality. It was a democracy more democratic then all democracies in the Western world before and after then added up together. Workers’ democracy alone can enthrone “equal opportunity and social justice”. It fundamentally, entails:
· the working people and youths armed, subordinating or proscribing the specialized bodies of armed personnel (i.e. soldiers, police, etc);

· fusion of the executive and legislative functions in the organs of workers power at all levels in the state;

· the election criterion for determining all public officers, smashing the bureaucracy which hides behind “elected” bourgeois “representatives” of the people;

· limiting the income of representatives to the rates of wages earned by the average worker.

2.2 Elections and electoral systems
Elections are considered central to democracies. According to the Wikipedia: “in political theory, government’s authority to govern in a democracy is derived solely from the consent of the governed”. This consent it is assumed is best ascertained through elections.

Incidentally though, public officers in the ancient Athenian democracy were not determined through elections. To avoid possible manipulations that elections could bear, public officers emerged through sortition. This is a form of drawing lots; the same position was enthroned in early Venice .

Anifowoshe (2003) aptly captured the “elite selection” character of elections when he stated: “Elections broadly conceived, refer to the process of elite selection by the mass of the population in any given political system”. He further identified the functions of elections as being; recruiting of politicians and public decision-makers; making governments; providing representation, influencing policy decisions; educating voters; building legitimacy; strengthening elites; providing succession in leadership and; extension of participation to many people.

Elections have been identified to be competitive or non-competitive/ratificatory, non-competitive or ratificatory elections are usually considered as “sham elections” and occur mainly in one-party dictatorships. They are merely symbolic. In the view of Jeanne Kirkpatrick a scholar and former Ambassador of the United States of North America to the United Nations “democratic elections are not merely symbolic… They are competitive, periodic, inclusive, definitive elections in which the chief decision-makers in a government are selected by citizens who enjoy broad freedom to criticize government, to publish their criticism and to present all”.

Supposedly competitive elections, especially in underdeveloped capitalist countries, do not seem to fit the bill of what constitutes “democratic elections”. Tunde Babawale (2003) has argued that “the nature and character of the state affect in a significant sense, the electoral process and its outcome… where a state is weak and consequently exhibits traits of failure, elections are likely to be assailed by numerous problems that may threaten the entire election and its outcome”.

The democratic watch international however strongly believes that elections being critical for the sustenance of democracy “great care... (must be) taken to prevent any explicit or hidden structural bias towards any candidate”.

If could be argued that the history of elections involves on one hand addressing with “great care” possible institutionalized biases and on the other promoting suffrage for ever expanding groups of citizens within the nation.

Electoral systems comprise the laws, regulations and processes within which elections take place. They provide frameworks on eligibility to vote and be voted for; frequency of elections; how votes are to be counted and collated; finance and; determination of seats in government (or emergence as president) in relation to votes cast.

The rules guiding the electoral institutions (which include an electoral umpire that is supposed to be “unbiased and impartial) and processes could be considered as being either constitutive or regulative.

These rules are usually enacted by the legislature in a democracy, an example of this the Electoral Act 2006. The parties in an electoral system should be in agreement on both the constitutive and regulative rules.

There are two basic types of electoral systems. These are the majoritarian system and the proportional representation system.

Electoral reforms are embarked upon by governments as means of either introducing or improving the fairness or effectiveness of electoral systems.

In this light, a major aim of electoral reforms is that of reducing if not totally eradicating electoral irregularities and malpractices. Electoral malpractices as Ologbenla (2003) noted “are to be distinguished from mere electoral irregularities which relate to non-compliance with prescribed procedure at election”. Electoral malpractices go way back in history to 471BC in Athens and could simply be called electoral fraud.

Electoral reforms being necessary for improving the fairness of electoral systems and ensuring that the people’s votes are counted and do count, are critical for bestowing elections with integrity. Without such integrity and credibility, governments emerging from elections would be lacking in legitimacy. It would also be almost impossible in capitalist society for working people’s governments to be formed through the ballots in the absence of credible elections. It was possible for Salvador Allende’s Socialist Party to come to power in 1970 Chile and for Hugo Chavez to pick the torch of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela through the ballot only because, the working people’s votes were counted and did count. The road to power while being through electoral systems was however not by genuflecting before empty parliamentarism. The ruling class had to ensure that their votes counted only because they could mobilize to defend their victories which were first won in the hearts of the working people.

Trade unions, working people and progressive sections of the civil society thus do have a major stake in ensuring that electoral systems that are as just as possible in capitalist societies, are established through radical electoral reforms. This would be essential for broadening the democratic space without falling into the drunkenness of an illusion in “parliamentarism” as a plausible alternative to the revolutionary transformation of society.






3.0 LABOUR, POWER AND POLITICS

3.1 Trade unions, politics and party formation
Many a trade union activist in Nigeria assumes that the trade union movement and the labour movement are one and the same thing. As Eskor Toyo (2006) stated: “All workers should know that there is a big difference between a trade union movement and a labour movement”. What the trade union movement is could best be described as done by the Nigeria Labour Congress in its policy on Labour and Politics as one concerned with the workers’ “economic interests in better wages, better conditions of work, the pursuit of which does not require the workers to challenge existing political order”.

The term “Labour movement” according to Eskor Toyo “is used to cover both the trade union movement and the socialist movement taken together as a movement of the working people”.

Wogu Ananaba (1969) informs us that: “until 1946, the trade unions were not involved in politics”. He gave two reasons for these which were the fear of the colonial government that “trade unions might fall under the domination of disaffected persons by which their activities may be diverted to improper and mischievous ends” on one hand. On the other he said “few politicians or political parties then existing had given serious thought to the immense power of organized labour in the nationalist struggles, let alone to the idea of going all out to utilize that power”.

In the past half a century though, while views on how to engage in politics might have at different times been in contention, there seems to have been unanimity on the necessity for trade unions in Nigeria to be concerned with politics.

The Trade Union Congress was a party to the historic August 26, 1944 Glover Memorial Hall Conference which gave birth to the Nigeria National Council, later renamed the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, NCNC (Ananaba; 1969, Omojola; 1993). The Council was initially the mass democratic front in the anti-colonial struggle, not unlike what the ANC was in South Africa ’s anti-aparthied struggle.

The event that was to cement the relations of TUC with NCNC was the “Pan-Nigeria to London Delegation” as a campaign against the Richards Constitution. The delegation comprised: the doyen of Nigeria’s nationalist struggle Herbert Heelas Macaulay (National President, NCNC) Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (General Secretary, NCNC) and; M.A.O Imoudu (Vice President, TUC), incidentally it was a feed-back from TUC delegates to “a representative meeting” after the return of the delegation, to the TUC General Council that threw up the question of “propriety” of TUC’s affiliation to a political party.

On November 29, 1947 the question of affiliation was addressed at a plenary meeting of the General Council and by 11 votes to 7, the pro-affiliationists carried the day. A press statement by TUC after the meeting stated that “having made a thorough and impartial examination of previous discussions on the relation of the TUC and NCNC in the light of facts available in the Congress secretariat, the General Council resolved by a majority of votes that the TUC has been within the NCNC and that it should continue as such until the formation of its proposed labour party”.

The dis-affiliationists, were not to give in so easily, they pursued the cause of disaffiliation quite fervently. This was inspite of a warning by H.P. Adebola in The West African Pilot. Adebola popularly known as “Horse Power” was considered a moderate and became a leading light in the ICFTU aligned ULCN during the cold war had stated that: ‘before the General Council meeting of November 29, most of the member unions had decided to secede from the TUC if the congress should sever its connection with the NCNC’.

The sixth Annual Delegates Conference of the TUC held at the CMS Grammar School Lagos, opened on December 27, 1948. It was to be the last congress of the TUC.

The anti-affiliationists opposed affiliation to any political party, not just the NCNC averring that they were not averse to TUC rather forming its own Labour Party. They were led by O. Olatunde, General Secretary of the Public Utility, Technical and General Workers’ Union .

Nduka Eze, the fire-spitting radical General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of UAC African Workers proposed a motion on behalf of the pro-affiliationists. The motion was defeated when put to vote. This signaled the death knell of the TUC. Three days after the congress, the Domestic Workers’ Union pulled out of the TUC. Olatunde’s Public Utility Workers’ Union interestingly, followed suit. The Nigeria Union of Nurses asked its General Secretary N.A Cole who was steering the TUC ship as President to choose between his job with the union and his leadership of TUC. He stuck with his union. The Elder Dempster Lines African Workers’ Union was next and it called on other unions to also leave TUC. The biggest blow to what was left of TUC was delivered on January 20, 1949. The Amalgamated Union of UAC African Workers, one of the “mega-unions” also pulled out of TUC.

A twelve-person committee of trade unionists was established that month and in March, it gave birth to the Nigerian National Federation of Labour (NNFL). Contention on the way trade unions should participate in politics thus resulted in the first split in the Nigerian trade union movement. Subsequent splits after the international splintering of what was to become the ICFTU from the WFTU in 1949 were along lines of East and West, within the context of the cold war. Those on the left of the divide (till the December 18-20, 1975 and subsequently February 28, 1979 formation of the second and third (subsisting NLC)) remained unequivocal about trade unions necessary interest in politics, while those on the right (including HP Adebola that once spoke glowingly for the affiliationists) eschewed partisan political engagement.

We could note from the TUC position on affiliation that the (long term) goal was not affiliation to NCNC but the formation of a Labour Party. Several attempts had been made before then and were to be subsequently made at establishing labour’s own party.

The earliest attempts at forming a Labour Party in Nigeria evolved from the Nigeria Labour Organisation (which had been formed in 1930 by J.A. Olushola).This was in 1931 with the formation of the African Workers’ Union/Nigeria Labour Party by I.T.A Wallace Johnson “a radical Sierra Leone journalist. In 1948, Michael Imoudu, “secret document” F.O Coker and several other proletarian revolutionaries also set up a Labour Party which however never found its feet. While not forming a party, the first NLC in 1950 established a United Front with the NNDP Market Women’s Guild which took active part in electoral politics. In 1950 labour movement activists formed the Freedom Movement as a party formation and the following year some formed what was called “the League”. None of these lasted.

Eskor Toyo in his “Conferences of Socialists in Nigeria ” documented “the formation of the United working People’s Party with Christian Anozie as Chairman and Meke Anagbogu as Secretary” in 1953. This was at a conference in Onitsha , South-East of Nigeria , which brought together the People’s Committee for Independence (PCI) and the Convention People’s Party of Nigeria (CPPN). He however further informed us that “the party petered out by 1955 because of sectarianism and elitism resulting in political isolation from the masses”. The trade unions were not involved in either the PCI or the CPPN and did not seem to have aligned with the UWPP they gave birth to as.

In August 1963 after several meetings initiated by the Nigeria Trade Union Congress and the Nigerian Youth Congress which had involved several left parties, like; the Nigerian People’s Party led by Curtis Joseph and Gogo Chu Nzeribe, the Lagos based Nigerian Communist Party led by Madu, the Kano-based Nigeria Communist Party, led by Una-Akpan, elements from the defunct UWPP and left elements in both the Action group and Northern Elements Progressive Union that were supposed to be entrists underground; the founding congress of the Socialist Workers and Farmer Party, SWAFP, was held.

According to Otegbeye (1999) who served as General Secretary of the party, “two ideas emerged”, in the course of discussion that led to the formation of the party “either to launch a party based on scientific socialism or a National Democratic front party”. The decision to establish a socialist party of workers and farmers was taken because after three years of neo-colonial statehood it had become obvious that independence had not led to freedom and a better life for the working people, under the watch of the dominant bourgeois parties. It was thus felt that “the battle for freedom for the people must henceforth be launched by the people themselves guided by a party that was their own”.

Within two months a split loomed within the party. It centered on who was to be Chairman of the Central Committee. Comrades led by Eskor Toyo, Mayirue Kolagbodi, Ola Oni, Baba Omojola, Amaefule Ikoro, S. Khayam, and J. Abas insisted that M.A.O Imoudu be made the chairman. The majority however believed that while Imoudu’s militancy and credentials as Labour Leader No 1 were unassailable, the tasks of the CC’s chair required “a good command of the English Language” and clarity on ideological issues; qualities which they felt were lacking in the Lion of the Railwaymen’s Union. Uche Omo was thus elected as chairman of the party’s Central Committee while Wahab Goodluck served as Vice Chairman, SU. Bassey as Assistant Secretary and Ibidapo Fatogun, Hudson Momodu, Aghedo, P.K. Nwokedi, Obasa and Kunle Oyeso were members.

The pro-Imoudu activists were to hold a conference the following year at Ibadan where what Toyo claims to be “the first Nigeria Labour party” was formed. Michael Athokamien Ominus Imoudu was elected President and Eskor Toyo Secretary. Toyo further informs us that while the party “was banned along with other political parties in 1966… the party was already immobilised by infantilist and petite bourgeois factionalism before the state killed it”.

The Socialist Workers and Farmers Party seemed to make much more progress. The party had structures and drew mammoth-sized crowds of working people to its rallies in “places like Lagos, Ibadan, Akure, Oshogbo, Benin City, Sapele, Asaba, Warri, Agbor in the West, Aba, Onitsha, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Uyo, Nsukka in the East and Ilorin, Gboko, Makurdi, Jos, Kaduna, Sokoto, Gusau, etc. in the North, while the centers of workers concentration and the great industrial unions were its strongholds” (Otegbeye; 1999). SWAFP also published a weekly newspaper Advance and even after the 1996 ban, continued to operate underground publishing its organ until the early 70s. It was quite close to the Kremlin and obviously better funded than the Imoudi-led NLP. It however, never won a seat in parliament though it contested in the industrial centers before the collapse of the first republic in 1966.

In the build up to the Second Republic , there were two Socialist Conferences (1977 and 1979) which resulted in the birth of the Socialist Party of Workers, Farmers and Youths and the Socialist Working People’s Party respectively. These would be looked at better in the next section because while socialist trade unionists like Wahab Goodluck and his group were involved as a tendency the trade unions were not. The reason for this could be traced to the then changing face of the trade union movement. The Apena declaration of September 21, 1974 had paved the way for the leadership of the four trade union centers to forge unity themselves and form the second NLC on December 18-20, 1975 by the time of the 1977 socialist conference however, Goodluck and ten other leading trade unionists had been banned for life from trade union activities by the military government of General Obasanjo. The second NLC had as well been proscribed.

Organized labour did in 1989 form a Nigeria Labour Party, based on the resolution of its Calabar NEC meeting in April. The party had Dr. Frederick Fasehun as Chairman with Alhaji A.A. Salam as Secretary. The party folded up when the military junta did not register it or any of the other parties formed by politicians and rather set up two clones: National Republican Convention and Social Democratic Party. The NLC threw in its lot with the SDP. This did benefit a few top functionaries of the movement but definitely not the working class it represents. The rest as a saying goes “is history. The “little – to –the – left” SDP under Tony Anenih traded off its mandate of June 12 for a possible “fix it” future of bourgeois largesse.

During Abacha’s transition programme before his transition, there was a still- born Labour Democratic Party. While a few trade unionists were involved with such then friends of labour like Sarah Jibril and Gbenga Olawepo, it was not an initiative of the trade unions and did not have the movement’s support.

In the present dispensation, labour resolved on forming a party at its Bauchi 2002 NEC meeting. The party was initially called Party for Social Democracy. Based on the critique of several activists of the party including Baba Ayelabola in his article “May Day Socialism and the working class” published in The Guardian on May 1, 2003, the nomenclature of the party was eventually changed and it became the Labour Party at its Inaugural Conference of February 28, 2004.

NLC adopted a policy on politics at its 2003 conference which interestingly is more radical then the manifesto of the party it created.

Beckman and Lukman (2006) did to a great extent capture the dynamics of the first two years of the party. The hope and enthusiasm with which the party was welcomed by workers as documented by Tunde Adebola (2004) soon got dissipated due to inertia. Proposals submitted to the inaugural working committee of the party bearing on ‘membership mobilisation’, ‘party structure’, ‘finance’ ‘party literature and publicity; and ‘party relations’ were not heeded and infact no national organ of the party met for a year and a half (Baba Ayelabola 2004, 2005).

With the ignition of electoral politicking which came to its crescendo with the April 14 & 21 polls, the Labour Party seemed to come alive, presenting candidates for several offices in some 24 out of the 36 states of the federation. A number of trade union leaders and activists have however called these “rejects” from other parties including (or especially) the PDP. Some LP functionaries frowned at this observing that little interest was shown in the party’s fortunes by trade unionists and that the party needed men and women who had the financial ability to fund elections, since the party as they claim is cash strapped.

One thing that is clear in the debate is that a major disconnect exists between the trade union movement and the Labour Party. The recent NLC Delegates Conference noted that “in its current form, the Labour Party lacks the ideological consistency, institutional effectiveness and vertical penetration of society which is required for its transformation into a pan-Nigerian progressive party”. The conference was further enjoined to “mandate the NEC to develop a programme of NLC’s involvement in its organized renewal”. This would require practical and consistent action on the party of Congress and can successfully be hinged only on popularizing the party within the ranks of the working class movement as the workers’ party.

The ideology of social-democracy which the party upholds might also require serious consideration. Toyo might not be too wrong in considering social democracy as a beggarly ideology.







3.2 The Socialist Movement, Civil Society and power.
The socialist movement in Nigeria goes back to the 1940s. Socialist forces were very active in the NNFL, ANTUF, the 1950 NLC and the NTUC. Civil Society groups as they would now be called, in colonial and early post-colonial Nigeria included militant youth groups such as the Zikist National Vanguard and the Nigeria Youth Congress. These were under socialist influence and were seen as democratic front organizations.

Several fringe groups of socialist intellectuals that lacked any organizationally or organic ties to the trade union movement and even much less impact on the terrain of contest for political power, did exist. Eskor Toyo has to some extent documented the conferences of these. The attacks on communism after the civil war by Gowon from 1970 constituted a set-back for the development of socialist forces. Socialists in line with the two-stage theory tried to build people’s democratic fronts with other civil society forces. A major example of this was the Movement for People’s Democracy established in 1978 initiated by Baba Omojola and Ola Oni. The 1977 All – Nigerian Socialists Conference held at Zaria (and considered by many as the first All – Nigeria Socialist Conference) did not forge socialist unity. It was agreed that a party was desirable but many were confounded when Ola Oni went ahead with his group at Ibadan to form the Socialist Workers, Farmers and Youths Party. In 1979, the Marxist organ, edited by Ibidapo Fatogun summoned yet another Conference in Benin . This was where the Socialist Working People’s Party was formed. The party operated underground but had great influence on the leadership of the NLC in the Summonu and Chiroma years. Elements from the party still active have regrouped as the Communist party of Nigeria , COMPON, which is one of the groups making up the All-Nigeria Socialist Alliance, ANSA.

The socialist movement inspired the formation of an Alliance for Democratic Rights (ADR) in 1982 during the second republic. Salihu Lukman (2005) notes that the strategy of the Alliance as a democratic front “was informed by a commitment to common beliefs on the future direction of the country and humanity”. The ADR, he also informed “was instrumental in facilitating the discussion towards a formal alliance between the students movement and the trade unions.” The students’ movement became a training ground for the socialist movement. This was driven by the Patriotic Youths Movement of Nigeria, PYMN (established at Ibadan in 1973) till 1986 /87 when Trotskyite formations emerged in the students’ movement (at UNIFE, now Obafemi Awolowo University ) and 1990 when the Mayist trend of May 31st movement (M31M) at University of Ilorin was formed. This is not the space and time to go into the history and dynamics of the students’ movement and its left driving force (until its degeneration started a decade ago). Suffice it to note though that leading elements in what is today considered the civil society movement and to some (extent within the trade unions) were cadres steeled (some with the steel now melted) in that movement. The present shape of the socialist left in the country could be traced to the struggles against the Babangida dictatorship. The Socialist Congress of Nigeria (SCON) and the (Working) People’s Liberation Movement (PLM) were formed in 1986, the Socialist Revolutionary Vanguard was subsequently forged by the PLM, and other groups. These were all groups representing orthodoxy in the then world socialist movement. The Labour Militant an affiliate of the Trotskyite Committee for a Workers’ International was formed the same year.

Despite the trade union bureaucracy’s attempt at minimizing the roles of “radical hotheads” in the 1989 NLP due to differences on the strategy it was perceived necessary for the party to adopt between it and the socialist left, cadres of these formations played active roles at the sub-national level in building the party. Infact the first All-Nigeria Socialist Alliance was formed in 1989 based to a great extent on the decision of the NLC’s NEC to establish the NLP. It was initiated by Dapo Fatogun of the New Horizon and included the Madunagu-led Democratic action Committee (DACOM) Socialist Congress of Nigeria (SCON), and Mass- Line. The alliance as well as the party “soon folded up.” With the collapse of the Alliance and the NLP, the left seemed to devote itself to human rights and pro-democratic struggle, thus initiating what we have somewhere else described as the radical or critical civil society( movement) in the country. Intra and inter-tendential conflicts within the socialist movement were reflected in and deepened by developments in the “mass democratic organizations” as civil society formations were then called. A split in SCON was reflected in the February 1994 Teachers House split of the Campaign for Democracy (the major pro-democracy coalition in the fight against military dictatorship) SCON II with Chima Ubani, Chom Bagu, Y.Z Yau (and a leading SRV activist Dr. Abayomi Ferreira as well as the doyen of pro-democratic resistance in Nigeria, Alao Aka-Bashorun; a former president of the lawyers association) were to later inform the Democratic Alternative (a party that was to be built along ANC lines according to its protagonists, with its Liberation Charter) on June 4, 1994 at Benin. The Labour Militant (now Democratic Socialist Movement) which had also been split in 1993 became the major organization driving Gani Fawehinmi’s National Conscience which transformed into a party (NCP) on October 1, 1994. Two things should be noted at this juncture. The first being that the splits arose from contentions on how the left should respond to the annulled mandate M.K.O. Abiola was deemed to have won at the 1993 polls. The traditional bodies in these organizations favoured critical support while the splinter bodies position is best captured by the slogan; “neither IBB nor MKO!” The second is that these two left parties were formed in defiance of the military government which then had decreed a ban on ‘politics”. Pressure group politics with the objective of forcing out the military still however remained the socialist left’s “national democratic revolution” strategy. The C.D. which had kow-towed behind the liberal bourgeoisie in 1993, surrendering to the illusory bliss of hope in Abacha’s returning of the mandate, was gradually becoming irrelevant. The same forces behind it formed the United Action for Democracy (UAD) on May 17, 1997. Splits still led to the formation of another coalition Joint Action Council of Nigeria (JACON) shortly after. With counter-revolution seizing the initiative after Abacha’s sensual transition and M.K.O’s “mysterious” demise, the NCP and D.A. sought registration to participate in the 1999 elections that brought Obasanjo back to power. They were not registered. These left parties and the Movement for Democracy and Justice (a center of left formation), the Peoples Mandate Party and a few others fought through the law courts to ensure that the registration process was “liberated” by 2003. Incidentally the Labour Party (then PSD) stood on the side lines while that battle raged, only to benefit from its spoils, so to speak.

Efforts at forging a political relationship with radical civil society by NLC took shape in 2000 with a planning workshop that included “more than thirty civil society organizations” (NLC; 2001). This gave birth to the Civil Society Pro-Democracy Network. The network came out with a manifesto and established a steering committee to mid-wife the birth of a Working People’s Party. The committee was headed by Ali Chiroma, a former President of Congress (and also a former Deputy President of MHWUN). The committee drafted rules and a manifesto for the would have been WPP. It is strongly believed that moderate social – democrats within the trade union bureaucracy bothered about the influence revolutionary socialists would most likely wield in the WPP ensured that it was still born. The socialist left was not par to the process of the formation of the present Labour Party and even now, lack a proper platform within the party. Efforts seem to be on though in Lagos to build a “Marxist bloc” as it is called within the party. These efforts are however marred by questions of organization and strategy that could make it an effort in futility. It is noteworthy that the Democratic Alternative had before its registration championed the cause of forming a Labour Party. It held a Conference on August 5, 2000 to which it invited unions and the labour center. Only MHWUN and the TUC were represented. The Democratic alternative also played a key role along with some of the socialist formations and personalities in attempts to have socialist unity. This took the shape of All –Nigeria Socialist Conference of February 21/23, 2003 which gave birth to the Nigeria Socialist Alliance- This was short-lived. An All- Nigeria Socialist Alliance however emerged from discussions which the Abuja Socialists collective initiated at the October 2005 fineral of Chima Ubani ( Nigeria ’s own Chris Dani). The Alliance however seemed non-existent as the ….. that ld to the torrent of the 2007 elections gathered strength. The socialist left remains largely fragmented, inept as a movement and with very fragile inorganic ties to the working class movement. This disconnect and that of the Labour Party form the trade unions represented critical issues at the root of the gross incapacity the working class movement to rise to the full length of its stature, moving from the howling winds of protests to the possible horizons of its vanguard role in the revolutionary struggle for social change in Nigeria.

4.0 ELECTIONS IN NIGERIA BEFORE 2007

The over- politicization of the state in Africa in general and in Nigeria in particular had been identified by Professor Claude Ake (1985, 1994). He had pointed out that the high political stakes and the primitive accumulation with the instrumentality of the state which has become a feature of the African bourgeoisie whom he considered “an obstacle to the progress” of the continent (1977) makes fair foul and foul fair in a “do-or –die” commitment to winning and maintaining state power, by different sections of this comprador class. This is the point of departure for rigging or “fixing” elections which as become the bane of Nigeria . The first elections in Nigeria were held in 1922 under the Clifford Constitution. These enabled some Nigerians (in Lagos and Calabar) to be elected as members into the advisory Legislative Council. This led to the formation of the first party in Nigeria , the Herbert Heelas Macaulay – led Nigeria National Democratic Party (NNDP). While amongst pre- 1960 general elections it is noteworthy to point out that in the Lagos Town Council Election of October, 1950 the United Front comprising the (1st) NLC and the NNDP Market Women’s Guild won 18 out of the available 24 seats, we shall dwell basically on the independence and post – colonial elections. In this section we shall be indebted to Dr. Browne Onuoha (2003) in categorizing elections in Nigeria into: “transition elections” “which introduced Nigerian civil, political and democratic control of governance” as he put it, on one hand. And on the other; “consolidation elections” which could be considered as “second term elections” (or “third term” elections …?)

4.1 The Transition Elections
The first general elections in Nigeria held in 1959. It signaled the transition from colonial rule to post-colonial “independence” (more like neo-colonial rule). Sixteen political parties contested in the elections. The three big parties, clearly along ethno-regional lines were the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), the Northern Peoples Congress (NCNC) and the Action Group (AG). Some key minor parties were Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC). The government to be formed was to be Westminister – Parliamentarian. The NPC won but had to enter into coalition with NCNC to form government. AG took the position of official opposition in the national parliament. According to Onuoha: “The first term of the coalition government, 1960-64 was full of political crises, instability and loss of confidence between the coalition parties … The breakdown of the NPC/NCNC coalition was as a result of disagreement over resource allocation, appointments, the sharing of spoils and other benefits of office”. The next transition election which ushered in the Second Republic was conducted in 1979 after thirteen years of the military Bonapartism. Ologbenla rightly observed that “military regimes, like the colonial hegemonies had since the Second Republic , streamlined the ideological posturing of Nigerian political parties”. As he further pointed out “the military is … careful to ensure that only political parties that would not threaten the ideological status quo can operate.” It was thus not surprising that “the 1979 general election took place under a range of military electoral reforms”. Registration was made a pre-condition for parties to participate in the elections. Socialist parties like the SWPP and SPWFY were denied registration as was the left tending National Advance Party of Tunji Braithwaite (some Socialist elements participated on the platform of the UPN, GNPP and especially the PRP). A new constitution which replaced the parliamentary system of the First Republic with an American –like presidential system was introduced. The parties that participated were; the National Party of Nigeria (a scion of the NPC), Unity Party of Nigeria (new face of the AG), Nigeria’s Peoples Party (an incarnation of the latter (NCNC), Great Nigeria People’s Party, Peoples Redemption Party (representing the radical petite bourgeois NEPU) The elections were won by NPN but not without an arithmetical –cum-jurisprudential hitch. The new rules then required victory in 12 2/3 of the 19 states of the Federation for a party to claim the coveted presidency which the leading opponent, Chief Obafemi Awolowo declared that the NPN did not possess. In a judgment of the Supreme Court which the Chief Justice of the Federation Mr. Fatayi – Willaims demanded should not be referred to as a legal precedence, Alhaji Shehu Shagari was deemed duly returned. Writing on November 4, 1978 in his column in The Sunday Tribune, foremost atheist and social – democratic educationist Tai Solarin (a UPN activist and humanist of note) characterized the swearing –in of Shagari on October 1 as “The stolen presidency”. Noting the fraudulence that marked the 1979 elections and the opportunism of Nigeria’s ruling class he declared that : “If this government lasts for four years, the four-year NPN will have been firmly planted as Government Party everywhere, and the UPN, GNPP, the NPP and PRP will have been drained to annihilation, both in membership- it is already starting – and in morale. The 1983 election would, therefore, be between the NPN and the Revolutionary Party, which having studied how the NPN came to power, knows exactly what to do to supplant the NPN for presidency” The first half of his prophecy was not only virtually fulfilled, according to Madunagu, we might as well also have simply replaced NPN with PDP and 1979 and 1983 with 1999 and 2003 respectively. A “series of political crises overwhelmed the second Republic”, the NPN/NPP coalition collapsed. Onuoha reports that “As was the case in 1959, the crisis was a result of disagreements over the allocation of spoils and the attempt by NPN to widen its control over the political system by neutralizing an undermining its opponents”. The progressives could not forge a united front and paved the way for a “landslide victory” for NPN in 1983. The 1993 election was supposed to have been a transition election after years of transitory, transitions by the Babangida – led Junta. The hidden agenda” of the Junta as Alao Aka – Bashorun branded it saw to the annulment of the June 12 elections. This heralded a six – year “national democratic revolution” which ended with the victory of counter-revolution taking the form of yet another (and hopefully the last of Nigeria’s) transition elections. It is noteworthy though to stress an evil stratagem bordering on the fascistic by the IBB regime, in that would have been transition. The state took a step forward from registration of parties to the formation of two parties. These were the National Republican Convention which was supposed to be a “little –to- the – right “ and the Social Democratic Party, deemed a “little –to-the-left” The difference between both though, was that between six and half a dozen. The 1999 election was the last ace in a pack of cards dealt with the contrived and obviously convenient transition of the dark-goggled General Abacha who was bent on succeeding himself and the jailed “custodian of the June 12 mandate” MKO Abiola. Its objective which was pursued by the Nigerian state at the behest of the new imperialism was to steal the wind from the souls of an impending implosion, as diverse forces were being sucked into the popular resistance against the state. “The supervisory authorities, the military did not take chances in the transition election They were interested in who would succeed them “ (Onuoho; 2003). The two left parties that applied for registration (and that alone of the lot had been in existence before the transition), Democratic Alternative and National Conscience Party were denied registration. Three parties were registered. These were the Peoples Democratic Party, All Peoples Party (later All Nigeria Peoples Party) and the Alliance for Democracy (the rules were bent to accommodate it as it postured itself as the Yoruba South-West’s Party and sentiments (as well as calculations on “power shift” for the cause of law and order) tilted towards producing a South Western Yoruba President as a “compensation” for the annulment of the June 12 mandate of Abiola). Two candidates, both Yoruba from the South West contested the Presidential elections (the AD and APP entered an alliance). “Allegations were openly made (before the elections) that the PDP presidential candidate, General Obasanjo (rtd) was a presidential candidate of the military”. Onuoha noting ‘the weight of the accusation of rigging of votes” pointed out that “the rigging appeared higher than in any other transition election”. Chief Olu Falae the APP/AD presidential candidate characterized the elections as a “monumental fraud”. General Obasanjo who had in 1991/1992 wondered aloud what General Gowon (also a former military Head of State) forgot in the state house to make him covert a second shot at the exalted office, won the elections by carting home 62.70% of the votes declared as cast. Onuoha has “argued that the reason for the major rigging was to ensure that the party had an absolute majority in order to have the absolute majority in order to avoid a coalition and consequent weak take-off of a new government, which was part of the crises of the transition governments of 1959 and 1979”. And so was the Fourth(?) Republic established; on electoral fraud conceived, nurtured and hatched by the departing military.

4.2 The Consolidation Elections
There have been three consolidation elections (before the recent 2007 polls). These were in 1964, 1983 and 2003. The earlier two turned out to be “ transitions away from democracy” as they both led the country into the labyrinths of military dictatorship as the Caesars in Khaki stepped in to save the neo-colonial capitalist state which the antics of their brothers (and sisters ?) in agbada brought to the brink of collapse. Fourteen political parties contested the 1964 elections under the banner of two alliances. These were the Nigerian National Alliance (of the NCNC and Akintola’s NDP which broke away from the AG) and the United Peoples Grand Alliance (which included the AG, NCNC, NEPU and UMBC). The campaigns were ethno-regional and primordial. Punitive measures and obstructions were utilized by the parties in power (at both Federal and Regional levels) to undermine the campaigns of contending parties. Contrived allegations of disturbance of the public peace were as well used to detain activists of opposing parties. The crisis ensuing from the elections fanned the embers of “military vanguardism” in young idealist Majors like Nzeogwu, Ifeajuna, Ademoyega and Gbulie. When they struck, they got stuck (not before killing the Prime Minister Sir Tafawa Balewa, Finance Minister Okotie – Eboh, Premier of the Northern Region Alhaji Ahmadu Bello and some other leaders of the First Republic ). The Senate President Nwafor Orizu then gladly ceded power to the top brass of the army. A concatenation of events after this led to Nigeria ’s civil war which claimed over a million lives mainly working men, women and children. The next consolidation elections were in 1983. It had the highest reported voter turnout in the history of Nigeria according to the electoral Commission FEDECO, with 65 million voters supposedly participating as against 48 million in 1979. Several authors have however pointed out blatant gerrymandering with eligible voters in the stronghold of the ruling party (NPN) increasing by 33% from the 1979 figures while in the UPN (the main opposition party) controlled states, the increase was barely 12.3%. The elections were very much like those of 1964/65; mainly along primordial and ethno-regional lines. The National Advance Party was registered and participated along with the five that had contested in 1979 but with no appreciable impact. “Indeed the thuggery obstructionism, punitive control, looting and arson and rigging” of the 1983 elections made those of 1964/65 seem a mere dress rehearsal”. “The same political consequence” that consumed the First Republic was to seal the fate of the Second Republic as the military rolled out the tanks on December 1, 1983 marking its demise with a coup broadcast at dawn. The 2003 general elections was the first “consolidation elections” in Nigeria ’s history that did not bring about military intervention in its wake. It was also the most rigged before the April 2007 pools took the shine from its zenith of rigging. The stage for the elections was set with pilgrimages of notable persons and contrived masses to Aso Rock, pleading with Obasanjo who claimed to be waiting on the Lord before deciding to seek re-election or not, to jettison ecclesiastic directive and contest to continue his supposed good works. These were reminiscent of the “rent-a-crowd” tactics which were used by Abacha on the path to his being adopted by the “five fingers of a leprous hands” (as Bola Ige described the parties in that self-successionist transition) as a consensus candidate. Many however believed that Obasanjo’s considerations were more profane than divine. An agreement is believed to have been reached between forces which Madunaju (2006) defind as the Northern power bloc, the (South) Western power bloc, the military and the new imperialism (as the international Community) that Obasanjo serves out a one-term tenure and then lets power shift from the South-West. “Opposition parties referred to 2003 general election as the most rigged (“fixed” according to Onuoha (2003). This view was upheld by both foreign and local observers. A new dimension to rigging was introduced by the ruling party it has been dubbed “fixing”. It boils down to avoiding all the stress and strains of hijacking ballot boxes, stuffing ballot boxes, etc, where it could be avoided by simply allocating votes or “fixing” results of elections by the ruling party’s Messrs “ fixit.” “This practice was reported to have taken place in most states in the South – East and South-South.” As it was in 2003, so much more was it to be in 2007. Of the 42, 002, 620 votes cast representing 69% of the 60, 823, 022 registered votes; Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was declared President with 24, 456, 140 votes or 61.94% of the ballot. General Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP came second with 12, 710, 022 votes (32.19% of the ballot). Thirty political parties had participated in the elections with twenty presenting presidential candidates. Seven of these were left or left – leaning parties and together they had 411,675 votes or 0.9% of total votes declared cast. Elections in Nigeria in terms of irregularities and fraud, from the foregoing could be seen to have kept a spirited sprint from bad to worse with each subsequent general election turning out to be the worst. This portends the danger of increasing loss of confidence in the pathway of the ballot, to power (Adebola; 2007)


5.0 2007 GENERAL ELECTIONS; A NATIONAL DISASTER

5.1 Background to the Polls
The recent polls in Nigeria has been described severally as a “national tragedy”, “national disaster”, “national shame”. President Obasanjo had initially tried to surreptitiously extend his rule through the back door. After years of insistence that there was no need for a National Conference (Sovereign or otherwise) since a National Assembly was in place, Chief Obasanjo in 2005 convened a National Political Reforms Conference. With billions of tax-payers’ money down the drain, it became clear that it was meant to propose a new constitution the draft of which some how found its way into delegates papers and which innocuously contained a provision for a one-time tenure of six years for the president. When the kite could not fly, the gambit was taken to the National Assembly where the senate delivered it dead on arrival. Some said if adopted it would have led to an extension of Obasanjo’s administration by two years. More far-seeing citizens however even saw the possibility of such amendment being the basis for a “third term” of six years for the president after serving two full terms of four years each. Realizing that it had lost its bid for a third term, the Balogun of Owu was back to the drawing board.
The Vice-President who was to portray himself as a latter-day democrat - as if the leopard’s spots could be washed off by rain - had had strained relations with the President since 2003 and eventually fell out with him over the third term bid which ran against his own ambition to rule after the incumbent. He was supposed to be in charge of the Peoples Democratic Movement, the main group within the PDP. Chief Obasanjo however edged him out, rubbished other would-be contenders within the party and anointed Umaru Yar’Adua a seemingly dour, unassuming provincial gentleman, and younger brother of his deputy during his reign as a military Head of State, as the next President.

Baba Iyabo also played a joker that would ensure he remains as the power behind the throne. He saw to an amendment of the PDP constitution, making only a former President of the Federation on the platform of the party eligible to be chairman of its Board of Trustees. He might be the only one whom that cap fits for the next four (or eight?) years. President Obasanjo who likes to be addressed as Baba (father) of modern Nigeria definitely loomed larger than life on the 2007 elections. If he was not to continue as President, he was to be the architect of the ruling house for as long as he lives. His distinct traits; vindictiveness, coarseness, take-no-prisoners attitude, crudeness and megalomania marked the “do or –die” (in his words) interest of PDP to hold on to power by hook or (more of) crook. The President who publicly rains invectives on press men and women (he had a signboard in his Ota farm boldly stating that ‘pets and pressmen are not allowed’) and who in the full glare of the world had personally horse-shipped an erring police officer could be grossly insensitive, even of history which he panders to enthrone him as Nigeria’s messiah or at least Mandela. Professor Niyi Osundare in his February 24 and 25, 2004 public letter to the President best captured the views of Nigerians when he said; “you are the most arrogant, most insensitive, most callous, and most self – righteous and hypocritical ruler that this unfortunate country has ever been saddled with”.

It is quite true that many a time, rulers’ characteristics might be merely a defining face for the characteristics of the ruling class they represent. And it might not be far – fetched to note the insipid “arrogance”, crass insensitivity, bland ‘callousness’, self – serving self-righteousness and pious hypocrisy of Nigeria’s burgeoning capitalist class in the demonstrated “qualities” of the farmer – general President – in – twilight. It would however be inadequate to delimit the scope of contending circumstances and determinant developments that shape their actions and which they seek to shape, based merely on their traits and dispositions. The need to maintain PDP’s control of Nigeria ’s resources was quite paramount in the calculations of ensuring ‘victory” at all cost in the 2007 general elections. The main motive however remains the commitment of the ruling class through its most representative party to continued pursuit of its neo-liberal Reform Agenda. The National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), the neo-liberal blueprint of reforms foisted on Nigerians after the 2003 elections which has neither empowered the working people nor succeeded in guaranteeing Nigeria ’s development is now being upgraded to NEEDS 2. We have earlier challenged the philosophy behind NEEDS and the inadequacy of its strategy (Ayelabola; 2006). For NEEDS, Obasanjo was ready for a “do –or-die” contest, indeed a war against Nigerians at the polls.

The strategy fashioned out for the polls included effective use of the security agencies, and a pliant electoral body to facilitate blatant rigging and fixing in a manner that made the 2003 elections seem more like a holy conclave. General Malu, a former Chief of Army staff had given an expose of how security agencies were used for rigging in 2003. In 2003 Onuoha had noted that a “major issue in the pre-election process was the widespread fear of the culpability, readiness, even willingness of the country’s chief electoral monitor, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)”. A more creative braggart, with reportedly dubious background was appointed INEC Chief against the 2007 polls. This was Professor Iwu who had falsely claimed to have a first degree in Pharmacy, who had been indicted for tax evasion in Maryland USA and who had make millions of dollars from a patented lie : an herbal cure for Ebola which he made at the 1999 international Botanical Conference and which opened the vaults of grants without a word subsequently on the wonderful cure, bamboozled the nation about direct data capture machines that would make rigging “impossicant” as a street lingo for doubly impossible in Nigeria goes. He even also sought to introduce electronic voting (which, who knows- from the benefit of hindsight - would have facilitated electronic “fixing”). The Inspector – General of Police Mr. Sunday Ehindero – who replaced Tafa Balogun the super cop that made billions of naira for his services during the 2003 general elections and who was dropped like a bag of hot potatoes when his usefulness expired – was kept back in office even after he went past his retirement age months before the polls. How much more convenient to have a police boss also exiting to do what he had to do then taint a fresh face of law and order with the lawlessness and disorder that the police were to guard on April 14 and 21, 2007 ? The INEC boss preempted the possibility of opposition parties activists protests at polling centers by demanding that every voter must leave the scene of voting after conducting his or civic task. This was strictly enforced by the police where elections held at all. A major tool of self-righteousness used by the PDP in setting the stage of siege for its ramming its rigging was its anti – corruption pit-bull which had the face of Nuhu Ribadu, scion of the first minister of Defence of the federation. Opposition politicians and even those within PDP not considered malleable to the president’s desires were declared corrupt and subsequently in the most grotesque manner imaginable, summarily indicted. This of course was to invoke constitutional provisions barring indicted persons from electoral contest to deny them the opportunity of being voted for. This also was then fraudulent – to – the bone marrow, and corrupt-to-the –soul politicians who were as loyal to Baba as Aaron was to Moses were deemed to be saints not to talk of Baba’s own alleged role in several scams that came to the fore within the same period. With state resources for campaigns, a Mephistophelian of a Professor as Chief electoral officer and the security forces armed with over 50,000 new assault rifle, new ultra-modern helicopters and ready to “obey the last order”, the stage was set for what might be the greatest shame of a supposedly competitive election in the history of the human race.

5.2 Some Elections Indeed!
The April 14 and 21 elections have been adjudged by virtually all but the Federal Government, the PDP and INEC as “shameless”. The Domestic Observation Group, which had over 50,000 observers, had proclaimed that it had been “programmed to fail” and demanded fresh elections. International observers (except for the Commonwealth team under Dauda Jawara whose tenure in Gambia does not make that so surprising) averred that elections did not hold in about one third of the states and the polling centers across the country (yet results were declared), and where they held, they were marred by the peak of irregularities and malpractices imaginable in the 21st century.

The Nigeria Labour Congress has demanded that fresh elections be conducted in fifteen of the thirty six states of the Federation and is threatening a strike action on this demand. This many say is more credible than its condoning of the 2003 electoral fraud. A case –by-case analysis of the 2007 electoral shame would require the writing of a book. Suffice it to say that PDP was declared as being victorious in 29 states and its presidential candidate returned with 26 million votes. His nearest opponent General Muhammedu Buhari of the ANPP had 6 million votes with the Vice – President trailing behind with 2 million votes. The agent of the Vice-President’s party Chief Tom Ikimi, a former Foreign Affairs Minister who as a PDP stalwart had counted the winning votes for Obasanjo at the PDP primaries before the 2003 election, cried foul. He informed the world that; only eleven states had been called when “the INEC chairman just rushed down to declare the results and declare Umaru Yar ‘ Adua as the winner”. His ANPP colleague Admiral Lanre Anusu added: “I am in total agreement with what Chief Ikimi has just said.” Many Nigerians and watchers of the polls outside the shores of the land are wont to believe them considering the fact that, quite unlike the usual, votes scored on a state –by-state basis where not disclosed in the results. More so in some stats of the Federation it is reported that one week after the April 21, elections ballot papers were still being thumb printed by party faithful to make the ballot tally with the results declared as “evidence” to knock out the case opposition parties might make in the election petitions tribunals . Bags full of electoral materials were also found being moved within a state in the South-East of the country on May 10, almost a month after the gubernatorial and state house of assembly polls. It is interesting to note that in that same state, the number of votes initially declared where about a 100,000 more than the number of registered voters in the state (with the PDP gubernatorial candidate having a whopping eighty percent of it). The results were withdrawn and replaced with a not less incredulous result (but which tallied with the registered votes list) within 24 hours in the wake of a public outcry.


6.0 LESSONS FOR THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
The 2007 general elections is a culmination of the logic of Nigeria ’s post-colonial political development. Learning from it entails a dialectical understanding of the trends and forces that have been in contention politically and socio-economically, the class interest these forces pursue and the agenda they have thus set themselves. It is important for labour activists to be conscious of the fact as Ologbenla succinctly put it that: “since independence, the control of the Nigerian state has been the exclusive domain of the National bourgeoisie in alliance with foreign capital”. It is no less important to learn and draw inspiration from the inadequacies of the labour movement’s interventions and the selfless and heroic commitment of its cadres and leaders in the struggle for a new Nigeria and indeed a new world which is very much possible and quite exceedingly desirable.

PDP represents the most naked of the manifestation of bourgeoisie power in Nigeria , donned with seemingly civilian garb. It is not for us to cry or lament. We must rather be clear in our minds that ‘the game is a game of power, trial of strength” as Mayirue Kolagbodi rightly put it. We must wake up to our power, organize it and with it, organize the working people for struggle to wrest power from the hegemonic forces of a bourgeoisie entrenching itself in the crudest of manners in what is supposed to be a consolidation of (bourgeoisie) democracy, and its global overlord: international finance capital and its new imperialism, the evil empire of neo-liberalism with its altar at Washington.

The question arises, how do we or could we go about this in practical terms, drawing from our lessons in the journey that has thus far led us to the cul-de-sac of the ruling class legitimacy of April, 14 and 21, 2007? We will address this question to both the trade union and socialist movement, noting however that both are not compartments but intertwined threads of the same fabric.
6.1 Problems and prospects for the trade unions and the Labour party

We have noted that the 2007 general elections and its historic shamelessness and blatant disregard for the will of Nigerians are really more of symptoms of a syndrome than the cause. A tree is not felled by plucking its leaves, cutting off its branches or even dismembering it at the stem. We need to get to the roots and pull this out or the debilitating sickness will in one form or the other continue.

Nigeria Labour Congress recognized this when in its policy on socio-economic transformation it stated that: “Being a National Trade Union center in an African country, the Nigeria Labour Congress must play an active role in the transformation of society”.

The big question is how its interest could be practically realized.

We strongly believe that the point of departure, for the trade unions is its “policy document” over 70% of which still remain mere black and white four years and three months after their adoption.

The 35 resolutions of the 9th Delegates Conference are also very critical to challenging the forces behind the sort of elections that the 2007 general polls were and the direction our country seems to be heading.

Resolution 25 submitted by the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria might provide the key to policy –to-action linkages. This simply put is in breaking down targets for achieving policy objectives into a (four year) programme of action.

It is interesting to note that, arguably, but for resolutions 18,23and 22, the 35 resolutions adopted at the Conference are political, challenging the neo-liberal soul of the body of electoral rigging for the perpetuation of Nigeria ’s dependent capitalist existence.

Education and training has a critical role to play in this process. Many have criticized the NLC’s National and State-Level schools ideological contents just as many trade union activists knowledge these schools have opened for them vistas of knowledge and the gem for attitudinal change.

The missing link in these seeming contending views lies in a parochial perspective of the provision that “NLC Education must seek to build political awareness among the working class and must be geared to attain social change that deepens democracy and build a more equal society”. A thousand run of Harmattan and Rain Schools with ten thousand State-Level Schools thrown in for adequate measure, cannot in themselves fulfill this principle.

The need for mass circulating ideologically focused periodical of the working class cannot be overemphasized. For some of us it is embarrassing that while one of the first implemented strategies of Nigeria ’s pioneering trade union center was the establishment of the Nigeria worker which struck terror in the hearts of the colonialist capitalists, today nothing of such exists. It is also noteworthy that the NNFL had a weekly workers paper Labour Champion with a circulation of 10,000 (even the leading national dailies in today’s Nigeria, six decades after barely gross circulation rates of 60,000 – 70,000 !).

The National and State-Level Schools can only at best reinforce the role of such an organ with the objective of sharpening the class consciousness of Nigerian workers. A mass-circulating paper is at one and the same time a collective; organizer, informer, educator and mobilizer. Considering the fact that the need for such is covered by resolution 25, it is expected that making it a reality would be consummated.

Akin to this is the need for establishing a Labour Press House. Beyond periodicals, classical and contemporary working class literatures need to suffuse the atmosphere of working class activism for it to rise beyond being a class-in-itself.

I must state here too that I strongly believe that the NLC’s schools could play an important role in bridging the unfortunate gap between Congress and the LP. What stops LP activists (especially those that are workers) from being invited to participate in both the National and State-Level schools? Would this not rather enrich both the party and the affiliates whose members participate? Would it not be of immense value as a practical window into the “political” which the NLC’s Education policy upholds? I really do not know why a proposal in this light cannot at the very least be presented to the leadership of Congres.

The trade unions research function including aggregation and analysis of information and the building of strong research-to-play and policy-to-action linkages need to be strengthened.

Motion 33 on “the need to institutionlise a vibrant Labour-Civil Society collaboration in Nigeria ” is also one that requires serious and urgent consideration. LASCO presently is basically a ‘ Lagos thing’. And even this seems to be limited to the national leadership of Congress and the CSOs. Labour-radical civil society liaisons for action must be forged across the country.

The disconnect between the Labour Party and the trade union movement must be overcome. In doing this the trade unions have to exercise to the utmost their democratic rights including putting the provision in the constitutions of the unions (as enshrined therein by the military during the restructuring of (1976-78) that debars them from making contributions to their party (Baba Ayelabola 2000). Onuoha (2003) made it clear that “There were published reports of support (which would have included financial) of the party in power by large corporate bodies” noting that “this was openly done” in a such an ostentatious manner than had “ever been known previously”. This he further pointed out “is contrary to the letters and spirit of the funding of political parties during the Second and aborted Third Republic ”. This was in 2003, there was no hue and cry then, much more billions went into the third term bid from “corporate Nigeria ”. Organized labour in Nigeria must make bold to publicly own up to its role as the foundation of the Labour Party and support it in any and every way it so deems necessary.

Beyond finance the trade union movement also needs to make the Labour Party one genuinely representative of the working class movement under the banner of the working class ideology

6.2 The Socialist Movement, Civil Society and the challenges ahead.
One hundred and one years ago during the trial of the Haymarket martyrs, Schwab asserted that “every labor movement must of necessity, be socialistic”. This is in a sense a demonstration of the movement understanding its history, its destiny and in these, understanding itself as a sociological community.

The knock-kneed ascribing of social-democracy to the Labour Party as its ideology is not only strange, it was one never debated thus questioning the commitment to internal democracy espoused by its epigones. While Iyayi (2003) sees social-democracy and Marxism as “two major lines in the socialist movement” and believes that “little or no point is served nowadays in dwelling upon the genuineness or otherwise” of social-democracy as being ideologically representative of the working class”, he rightly avers that “social democracy is ambivalent on the question of the nature of modern bourgeois society”. Eskor Toyo further expressed the view that: “Social democracy has had three effects. First it confuses and this weakens it. Secondly it prevents the working class from really using its great potential power for self-liberation. It does this by restricting the consciousness, organization and struggles of the working class to the horizon of begging for welfarist crumbs from the masters’ table. Thirdly it prolongs the suffering of the working class and the oppressed of the world generally”.

It is quite noteworthy to point out that the illusion of winning over middle-class elements for financial and other purposes by not being out rightly “radically” or “revolutionarily” socialist has been punctured by recent developments. While some of the sort of elements that “social democracy” as our ideology was targeted at winning came over to the Labour Party during the last elections, they not only did not improve the purse of the party or its political leverage, some of them raised questions in the minds of working people about the integrity of the party. Even some of the leading apostles of ‘social-democracy” where disappointed at the calibre of what they termed “rejects” that were won over. Yet the more sophisticated “liberals” they sought to win over were no more fooled by ‘social democracy’ as the Labour Party’s ideology then the working people were put off by not seeing any (ideological) difference between what is supposed to be their own party and the bourgeois.

Socialist forces do not need to bemoan the situation, they need to challenge it as active players in the Labour movement, the Labour Party is as much our home as that of any “a little to the left” bureaucrat in the trade unions offcialdom. The process of engagement might require establishing a “workers’ democracy platform” within the party to fight the backwardness of “social democracy.

As stated in thesis 27 of the 31 thesis in “Tasks and Tactics for the formation of a Workers-Democratic Labour Party” presented on behalf of MHWUN at the August 5, 2000 D.A conference. “To build a strong workers party we need to re-build some of the traditional building blocks of our struggles…a united left platform in the students’ movement must be forged and the movement culture on campuses re-awoken”.

Leftist elements have to also re-awaken themselves from the lethargy of N.G.Oism which the new imperialism is very happy to promote. Elections observation, and sundry incorporationist work of civil society need to be integrated into a broader strategy for social transformation, if we are not to loose some of our brightest minds to the shadows in lieu of the substance.

As Baba Aye pointed out in his “Forward to Workers’ Democracy” presented at the 2003 All-Nigeria Socialist Conference, “we learn a lot from failed, collapsed and unconsummated revolutions”. We must learn from our past, including the recent elections.

The struggle for social transformation requires much greater consistency and organized intervention than the hip-hop, staccato, battle-cries of several socialist elements on the election and sundry matters.

The way forward and that way is a long, winding, tortuous road, which alone will lead to social change – lies in the education, mobilization and organization of the working people by a socialist labour party rooted in the trade unions and the ranks of the working class.

Along this road which the social question i.e. the class struggle between the oppressed and the oppressors, the exploited and the exploiters, the working people and the propertied classes would be resolved, the national question cannot be waved aside or addressed in a simplistic manner.

The socialist forces have to forge closer and stronger liaisons with the militant nationalities’ movements in the Niger Delta, the South-East, the South-West, the Middle-belt and the North. While upholding the unity of the socialist and labour movement we must recognize the right of each nationality to self-determination. National unity must not be coerced, but must be earned through trust and an acceptance of a just federal arrangement.



7.0 In lieu of a conclusion
We have sought to put in perspective not just the 2007 elections (and indeed general elections in general, in Nigeria ), we have tried to identify the forces and dynamics behind the phenomena. This could be located in the character of the Nigerian state and the agenda of the ruling class and imperialist interests that control the Nigerian state.

We have sought to enlighten trade union activists on efforts in the past by the labour movement to engage the forces of reaction in the struggle for Nigeria ’s transformation and indeed global social change. We have observed some of the limitation these efforts had, noting the problems and prospects of our generation in the pursuit of working class emancipation and the building of a new society based on equality and justice.

We have tried to make it clear that the disgraceful character of the 2007 elections is a symptom of something much deeper and gravely more evil than electoral irregularities and malpractices. We have unmasked the defence of the neo-liberal Reforms Agenda and the parasitic primitive accumulation of a bourgeois class that arrived late on the theatre of modern industrial society, which plays second fiddle to international finance capital and its world-wide plunder as the driving force behind such blatant day-light robbery as the ‘national tragedy” called elections. In looking beyond sham elections at building a strong workers-democratic Labour Movement that could mobilise the working people of Nigeria around the thunder of a power greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand fold, which rests in the hands of a working-class aware of its rich history and its beckoning future; we cannot but sum up with the inspiring words of that master strategist of the struggle of Nigeria’s working people who fell at the barricades of the workers’ struggles; Chima Ubani: “Regime change is our stand, mass resistance is our vehicle, system change is our goal”.

May10-12, 2007, Abuja .


*Being a paper presented at the MHWUN/Workers College Workshop @ Durban, South Africa of May 16-19, 2007

**Baba Ayelabola, a trade union educator and Steering Committee member of the All-Nigeria Socialist Alliance, is National Auditor of the Labour party (Nigeria).


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