"WE HAVE ARRIVED": Emergence of the Labour Party
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Introduction
Residents
of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, woke up on Friday February 27, 2004 to
see red, black and green posters with
the words "Labour Party (LP), WE HAVE ARRIVED" boldly inscribed on
them. It was the eve of Saturday, February 28, 2004, the day that the inaugural
convention of the now defunct Party for Social Democracy was billed to hold; the
day that the LABOUR PARTY was born.
The journey
to February 28,2004 started some would say, a year and a half ago when the Party
for Social Democracy was formed. Some others would say the journey started some
six decades back, when the first Labour Party was formed.
The
pre-independence forays of Labour into electoral politics was very promising,
but not long lasting. The dynamics of a "National Democratic
Revolution" which the anti-colonial struggle was seen as, prevailed, seeing
the dissolution of radical trade unionists into nationalist parties,
particularly, the NCNC.
Post-colonial
Nigeria witnessed some frenetic attempts at the establishment of Labour and
pro-labour parties. The first of these was the Nigeria Peoples Party of Gogo
Chu Nzeribe, a charismatic trade unionist in his days. Arguably the most
serious effort at establishing a working people's party in the first republic
was the Socialist Workers' and Farmers' Party (SWAFP) in August 1963. Its ranks
and leadership had activist workers and leaders of the left labour centre NTUC and
the Marxist intelligentsia.
In 1977,
on the eve of the 2nd republic, an All-Nigeria Socialist Conference was held at
Zaria. A cardinal resolution of the conference was the quest for power through
the formation of a socialist labour party. No united socialist or workers' party,
however, emerged from the conference. Two parties; the Socialist Working
People's Party and the Socialist Party of Workers Farmers and Youths crystallised
around different strands of the ideas and personalities at the Zaria Conference,
with the hope of seeking power in the second republic.
These
two left parties however were not only on the fringes of the awareness of
workers and the working people and sectarian in organisation, they were not
registered by General Obasanjo's FEDECO which had introduced that
anti-democratic concept of party registration hitherto unknown in Nigeria into
partisan politicking.
In
1978 though, a very significant development that out-lived the Zaria conference
of seven months earlier, took place on February 28th, at Ibadan, South-West Nigeria.
This was the formation of the third and subsisting Nigeria Labour Congress.
Nigerian workers unity was at last forged under a banner, and what a glorious
banner of the proletariat's might it has been!
In
spite of set-backs such as the 1988 banning of the NLC, for a year, on May 20
1989 when it declared the formation of a Nigeria Labour Party, the Party was
received with such tumultuous welcome by the toilers of Nigeria that the
masters, the captains of industry and business moguls, were quite
uncomfortable.
The
joy for the working people however was not to last. The djinni of a labour
party had been called forth by the Aladdin of a gap-toothed Maradona; Babangida.
Back to the lamp he commanded the djinni and twelve others that were a dozen of
sameness. And lo and behold, back to the lamp it meekly went with them.
The
trade union movement subsequently gambled on the Social-Democratic credentials
of IBB's "a little to the left" SDP. It however merely remained a
mere tenant in the house till its landlords connived with the military
gatekeepers to bring the roof down.
From
Party for Social Democracy to Labour Party
In
1999, after the six-year June 12 "National Democratic Revolution”, the
military apparatus of the ruling class of propertied persons had to roll back
the tanks of its occupation of the political landscape of Nigeria, back to the barracks.
While the process of democratisation or as many are wont to say
"civilianisation" of the polity was going on then, the trade union
movement was as well just shedding the fetters of militarist bondage.
In fact,
in 1998 when the political parties were being formed the keys of the NLC's
National Secretariat still nestled in the pockets of a sole administrator
imposed on the Congress by the military overlords of yesterday. It thus was not
surprising that in February 1999 when the first general elections of this
republic were held, barely a month after the beginning of the "new
beginning" of organized labour, it could at best merely play the role of
monitoring elections.
In
the months and years after May 29,1999 however,
time and again, organized labour proved itself to be the only credible
alternative to the anti-people, pro-imperialist, neo-liberal policies of the
current civilian dictatorship and the ludicrous, rapacious, greedy deceitful
and self-perpetuating antics of its personae dramatis.
Labor
protested against the self-serving "furniture allowances" of the
Federal lawmakers, at the inception of the republic. In June 2000,the masses
saw an alternative power in the leading role of organised labour, when for
three days the country lay prostrate in the wake of the first of
a series of General Strikes and Mass Protests against hikes in the pump
prices of petroleum products.
The hollowness
of mere critiquing of anti-people policies without seeking the powers to
abolish such as a progressive state power in itself, led the NLC leadership to considerations
of a partisan platform.
Before
the conception of the PSD though, there was the Labour-Civil Society Network,
which in 2000 met at Jos, Abeokuta and Ibadan ,bringing together activists from
different movements (students/youths, human and environmental rights, nationalities,
women, etc), representing diverse progressive tendencies, currents, and shades
of patriotic and socialist ideologies. The Ibadan declaration of this network
called for the formation of a "Working People's Party".
It
must be noted that at this same period, several trade union leaders were also
involved in some of the political alignments and re-alignments going on with
the emergence of several political party formations, quite a number of which
eventually never saw the light of the day.
The
truncation of the WPP formation as decided at the level of the network has been
roundly condemned by quite a number of socialist activists. Indeed the Marxist
political-economist of repute, Professor Eskor Toyo described this as a
"betrayal" at the All-Nigeria Socialist Conference held on February
21-23, 2003, at Benin City.
In
2002, the Party for Social Democracy emerged. Its affinity with the trade union
movement was not in doubt within the corridors of the movement's bureaucracy. However
as I stated in my article "MAY DAY: Socialism and the Working-Class"
in the Guardian on May 1, 2003, the rank and file workers were at
best only confused by its name which many saw as a parody of the SDP of yore that
had caved in under Chief Anenih, when it needed to stand up for its June 12
mandate in 1993.
Such
views shared by many would-have-been enthusiasts of the Party were also loudly
echoed by its most active branches some of which subsequently also called
for the Party's transformation to "Labour Party of Nigeria". It then
became, just a matter of time for the name change and "a new
beginning" for the Party.
The Party's National Convention had been proposed hitherto for December 2003. It however had to be shifted twice. Eventually though, the day of history beckoned through the haze. February28, 2004 came and oh!, what a blissful day it was for the working people of Nigeria.
FEBRUARY
28,2004: KEEPING A DATE WITH HISTORY
On
February 28, 2004, exactly twenty six years after the Nigeria Labour Congress
was formed, the Labour Party of today, the ruling party of the working people
in a beckoning future, was established.
Six
hundred and forty seven delegates from the thirty six states and Federal
Capital Territory of the Federation, joined the four hundred representatives of
the Party's platforms that had been accredited the day before.
The
Interim National Chairman and doyen of the trade union movement, Com Sylvester
Ejiofoh, and the Commander-In-Chief of the productive forces, the NLC President
Com. Adams Oshiomole addressed the ecstatic delegates of working people
gathered in the auditorium of the Women Development Centre, Abuja.
Their
message was clear and unambiguous. The working people and patriotic citizenry
under the vanguard of Labour would re-create the new Nigerian personality,
would create the "new man" in the transformation of our society. This
we cannot do without political power. Not a few delegates listening to these
leaders of Nigeria's workers, would have remembered the immortal words of the
Osagyefo, Kwame Nkrumah; “seek ye first the kingdom of political
power...."
Then
came the hour of transformation. As a song, as a chant, the words “we have
decided to form the Party x3,no turning backx4", rang through the hall, riverbarating
through the entire centre into the future of our great country which it shall
shape.
Several
meetings of the Party's leadership had been going on in the days preceding
the convention, at which four possible names had been considered. These were;
ü
Social-Democratic Labour
Party
ü
Democratic Labour Party
ü
Dynamic Labour Party
ü
Labour Party
Labour
Party was chosen for its concise brevity and simplicity. And as the LABOUR
PARTY was proposed as the new name of the Party, the frenzied passion of
delegates, telling of months indeed a year and half of yearning for just that,
was quite electrifying.
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