Leftists’ Quest For Political Power In Nigeria*

Since the Fourth Republic, the Leftists have been find­ing it difficult to ascend to political power in Nigeria. The late founder of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Chief Gani Fawehinmi and many of his followers tried several times. But, they could not win elections until the party was delisted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Several Leftist political parties which could not make much im­pression were also delisted when the INEC pruned the number of political parties to 18. Presently only the African Action Con­gress (AAC), formed by Omoyele Sowore, is standing as the major political platform of the Leftists.

Gbenga Komolafe, a veteran ac­tivist and the General Secretary, Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisations of Nigeria (FI­WON), who spoke to Sunday In­dependent, said the Progressive Left activists, politicians, parti­sans, and polemicists have been very loud about their critique of the neo-colonial order, now well entrenched and institutionalised in Nigeria.

Comrade Komolafe, Co-Con­vener, Coalition for Revolution (CORE), stated that the Leftists were very active and loud in the anti-colonial struggle with many of them like the late ME Kolagbo­di, Gogo Chu Nzeribe, Mokwugo Okoye, Saadu Zungu, Baba Omo­jola, Tony Ngurube, Aminu Kano, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, Hajia Gambo Sawaba, Michael Imoudu, etc, in the Trade Union Movement, Youth Movements, Zikist Move­ment, Women Movement, which constituted the different compo­nents of the National Liberation Movement.

He stressed: “They pushed for radical policies and programmes to lay an industrial base for the modernisation of local produc­tive forces with a robust social programme, including free edu­cation, free healthcare, large-scale agriculture driven by modern tech and inputs, etc.”

Komolafe, however, maintained that the British colonialists did ev­erything to decapitate the National Liberation Movement by targeting these radical activists and politi­cians, sometimes with the full connivance of local comprador elements.

He said: “For example, Baba ME Kolagbodi was never employed by the Nigerian state even though he was the first PhD holder from Germany in his field. Most of them suffered a similar fate just so to en­sure that they lacked even the least material resources to implement their ideas.

“The British Anti-Communist Act enacted after the 1949 Iva Val­ley Massacre outlawed socialist ac­tivism and criminalised the very idea. Till today, in certain quarters, the word ‘socialism’ registers with trepidation in the minds of many people, including those of working class extraction.

“The post-colonial situation has not been any different. Even though radical activists like Com­rade Ola Oni and many other radical left activists campaigned against military rule in the 1970s, the eventual political terrain that emerged in 1979 when the military eventually left, was dominated by politicians of bourgeois and petty bourgeois extraction.

“The best we had then were some social democratic politicians around the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the Maoist People Re­demption Party (PRP). The Fourth Republic has, however, turned out to be the worst experience of the political exclusion of radical left partisans.

“This is despite the fact that these activists were the soul of the anti-military agitations of the 1990s, within such organisations as the Campaign for Democracy (CD) and the United Action for Democ­racy (UAD). One of the reasons might be the dominant neo-liberal order with its attendant impover­ishment of wide segments of the population.

“This created an environment in which many voters became sus­ceptible to financial inducement. The culture of ‘money politics’ that IBB (Ibrahim Badamosi Babangi­da, former Military President) in­stitutionalised with his protracted political transition programmes had become deeply entrenched. Left political partisans could not cope with the settlement culture of the new ‘democratic’ dispensation.

“Unfortunately, the situation has progressively worsened since 1999 as each electoral circle intro­duced new elements of perversion and degradation of democratic institutions and state authorities. Even more worrisome, several state governors became armed bandits as they armed thugs and other lumpen elements to rig elec­tions and intimidate voters, while others unashamedly utilised state resources to massively bribe vot­ers and state officials superintend­ing elections.

“This scenario has left so many light arms in hands of criminal el­ements now sentencing the whole country to widespread violent crimes such as kidnapping for ransom and organised militari­sation of mining and agriculture as bandits steal farmers’ harvests and impose slave labour to extract valuable minerals, under force of arms.”

Komolafe stressed that in the evolved environment of com­pletely perverted democratic insti­tutions and plutocratic electoral systems, left-wing activists find it impossible to engage in politics.

According to him, “They lack the means to access monetised bourgeois media outlets to venti­late their ideas, meet up with the impossible conditions for new political parties such as having party offices all over the country, while the elections have become multi-billion naira periodic shows of shame.

“It is either the present electoral architecture is dismantled to make way for much more rational elec­toral systems or the entire politi­cal system itself gets dismantled to make way for a level playing field that could engender genuine democratic institutions that can midwife credible elections and en­courage participation of not only progressive left partisans but all men and women of Goodwill to participate in Nigerian politics.”

Comrade Baba Aye, another vet­eran activist and trade unionist, opined that there is a broad spec­trum of those that could be called leftists. Baba Aye, who among other positions is former Deputy National Secretary, Labour Party (LP) and former National Con­vener, United Action for Democ­racy (UAD), said there are those that simply want to reform the exploitative system of capitalism and those on the revolutionary left, who fight for the emancipation of the exploited and oppressed work­ing people.

The activist, who took active part in the June 12 struggle and Member, National Implementa­tion Committee of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), stated, “Most of those in governance are the re­formist left. And I must add that even a significant number of those are just audio left. They might have been leftists, maybe even revolu­tionary leftists years back, when they were younger. But they have made their peace with the system and merely want their own slices of the national cake.

“All these have an impact on how the different sections of the left or what are actually left of the left act when in government. Not much should be expected of the audio left. They are there merely to legitimise the thievery and op­pression of traditional politicians by talking left but walking right.

“We saw the radical reformist left in power during the Second Republic on the platform of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP). Both Balarabe Musa in Kaduna and Abubakar Rimi in Kano states stood out with their policies and perspectives which supported the poor masses.

“They taxed the big cattle own­ers, abrogated laws that enabled oppression of the ‘talakawa’ by the handful of elites. They were also the first to make May Day a public holiday in 1980.

“We even saw how far the cen­tre-left social democrats of AG (Ac­tion Group) and later UPN went with social policies like universal access to free education. We have never had the revolutionary left in power. Ideally, it would emerge on the wave of a triumphant revolu­tion that goes beyond elections.

“But even where it comes to power through elections, it will go much further than PRP. It will not only rule for the people; it will rule with the working people who will constitute bodies of democrat­ic power from below and people’s brigades to drive social policies like health for all, education for all and so on and so forth. That is what candidates of African Action Congress (AAC) contesting elec­tions now, like Kunle Ajayi for the governorship in Ondo State stand for, as revolutionaries.”

Hassan Taiwo Soweto, Nation­al Coordinator, Education Rights Campaign (ERC), also spoke to Sunday Independent on the quest for the Leftists to ascend to the na­tion’s political leadership. Soweto is the National Youth Leader of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) and National Executive Commit­tee (NEC) member of DSM.

Hear him: “I consider efforts by socialists to intervene in the elec­toral space by forming alternative political parties and putting up can­didates for elections as a bold and courageous effort to show to the long toiling working masses and youth of this country that an alternative exists to the rotten status quo.

“Regardless of their success in terms of actual electoral vic­tory, I think these efforts, symbol­ic as they may be, are crucial in strengthening class consciousness and particularly in preventing the long suffering working peo­ple from relapsing into a state of hopelessness and helplessness in the face of what may sometimes appear as the unrelenting march of the inequitable and oppressive capitalist system.

“For Marxists, election is just another theatre of the class strug­gle. I, myself, had an opportunity to contest on the platform of the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) in 2019 for the Ogun State House Assembly, Ifo Constituency 2. Even though I did not win, I was witness to how powerful such a revolution­ary alternative contest can be.

“It can wake people up to the reality of their exploitation and oppression. It can also serve as a pole of attraction to those who ear­nestly seek an end to the condition of inequality they have suffered for too long.

“Of course, we are all witness to how Omoyele Sowore’s contest for presidency popularised the idea of revolution. These are some of the achievements leftists have had each time they have contested elec­tions in this country particularly in the so-called Fourth Republic.

“By the way, this does not mean that radical and revolutionary can­didates cannot win elections. I per­sonally believe that if elections are free and fair, socialists and leftists can easily win any election in this country, because the truth is that the mass of the people are already fed up with capitalist politicians.

“Just look at the 2023 elections. It was the clearest expression yet that bourgeois democracy is only living on borrowed times in Ni­geria. The number of registered voters that abstained was over 60 million, nearly double the number of those that voted!

“The current imperialist slave in power today, President Tinubu, was declared as winner with the lowest share of votes ever record­ed in any presidential election in Nigeria since 1979 – despite all the rigging that the All Progressives Congress (APC) carried out in that election! So, in a sense, can we even call that victory! Isn’t that a gov­ernment of a minority ruling over a majority? Is that even democracy in bourgeois terms?

“But, what I am actually trying to explain is that such is the im­portance of leftists intervention at the electoral plane that even when they are not allowed to win, due to rigging by capitalist politi­cians, our successful utilisation of the electoral plane to canvass alternative ideas and programmes can have an effect in the period fol­lowing the polls in galvanising the mass struggle and under the right circumstance, those who had tak­en power at the poll through the instrumentality of rigging can find themselves losing it at the barricades when the people even­tually arise.”

* story by Ejike Omenazu, in Sunday Independent, 7th July 2024 & first published online at: https://independent.ng/leftists-quest-for-political-power-in-nigeria-2/