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Committee for a Workers' International

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Socialist Democracy Nov - Dec 2002.rtf

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Socialist Democracy Nov - Dec 2002

Political Violence, Election Rigging ...

Impeachment Saga:

Chase Out All The Capitalist Rogues

• For Immediate Elections On A Genuine Multi-Party Basis

• A Workers’ And Farmers’ Government Needed

The political situation in Nigeria in the past three months has been dominated by the move by National Assembly, particularly the House of Representatives, to impeach President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The House of Representatives on Tuesday, August 13th, 2002, at an emergency sitting in Abuja, adopted a resolution calling on the president to resign within two weeks or face impeachment for alleged constitutional breaches. The president was also accused of running the affairs of government like a dictatorship. As at the moment, 32 allegations were listed against the president by the House of Representatives.

In reaction, President Obasanjo, his supporters and some other commentators described the impeachment move as uncalled for, ill-timed and capable of destroying the so-called nascent democracy in Nigeria.

To us in the DSM, President Obasanjo does not deserve to stay a day longer as Nigerian president as a result of the innumerable economic and political atrocities which his government has committed against the Nigerian working masses in the past three years. Equally, the members of the National Assembly have for the past three years been primarily preoccupied in fighting for their own selfish interests in the past three years rather than the well-being of the electorate who elected them into office.

Therefore, rather than defending or backing either the president or the National Assembly, we in the DSM call on the Nigerian working masses to demand for the resignation of both President Obasanjo and members of the National Assembly and the holding of immediate elections on a genuine multi-party basis. Instead of supporting one faction of the ruling class or the other, the labour and trade union movement must provide a lead and mobilise the working masses to chase out of office all these capitalist rogues in the corridors of power.

OBASANJO PRESIDENCY

The Obasanjo presidency has clamped down on the basic rights of people, and implement numerous pro-rich, anti-poor policies of privatisation, trade liberalisation, currency devaluation, increment in price of petroleum products, removal of subsidy on social services like education, health care, transportation, etc, leading to a chronic state of high unemployment, poverty, homelessness, starvation for the poor, toiling masses, etc. As a willing tool in the hands of forces of global imperialism and their local agents, he has implemented policies which have left the Nigerian poor, toiling people in a state of uncertainty, hopelessness, poverty, starvation, destitution and despair. Only government contractors and others close to the corridors of power have benefitted from the so-called dividends of democracy.

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

But contrary to their claims, the impeachment move against Obasanjo by the lawmakers was not motivated by any altruism, or the interests of the larger society. In fact, the present National Assembly has been as pro-rich and anti-poor as the Obasanjo presidency. It has also proved to be no less corrupt and inept. It is largely an assembly of capitalist rogues and looters, who, just like Obasanjo and the executive, have preoccupied themselves with the act of money-making rather than law-making.

It would be recalled that on its inauguration, the first assignment carried out by the National Assembly members was to award to themselves a 'paltry' sum of N5 million each as furniture allowance! Following public outcry, the allowance was (officially) reduced to N3.5m, only for it to be exposed later that the members actually collected the originally demanded N5m and had only pretended to reduce the money to N3.5m in order to shield themselves from public outcry. This was at a time when all states were busy retrenching workers and labour leaders due to their claim of inability to pay N5,500 minimum wage! So, while governments of various states were claiming not to have money to pay to workers above N5,500 and while the Obasanjo federal government itself could not yield to the demand of the NLC for a N20,000 minimum wage, senators and House of Representatives members, the now true defenders of "peoples' democracy'' were busy lining their pockets fraudulently with millions of naira under one nomenclature or the other.

It would also be recalled that on 11th September 2002, while the controversy over the impeachment issue was still raging, the senate resolved to nullify the reports of both the Kuta and Oyofo panels which had found some leaders of the senate guilty of inflation of and non-execution of contracts running into millions of naira and pardoned all those found guilty in the spirit of 'reconciliation'!

The National Assembly and its leadership have never opposed privatisation of public assets, commercialisation of social services, oil industry deregulation and other anti-poor policies of Obasanjo regime. It also passed the undemocratic and unconstitutional 2001 electoral bill, which is designed to prevent the participation of popular, pro-working people political parties in the electoral process and exclude the masses from power. In essence, what we have is a National Assembly whose members are political contractors and whose major disagreement with the presidency is on the terms of trade.

In fact the major reason behind the impeachment bid is the struggle for supremacy between the various factions of the capitalist ruling class in general and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in particular as the 2003 general and presidential elections draw nearer. It is instructive to note that many of the misconducts listed against Obasanjo, such as the massacre at Odi in November 1999, took place two to three years ago, without any opposition or condemnation by the National Assembly.

FOR INDEPENDENT WORKING CLASS ALTERNATIVE

Based on the above analysis, DSM calls on the working masses and the labour movement not to support either the presidency or the National Assembly, the two sets of capitalist rogues, who are involved in the imbroglio.

Instead, the working people should demand for the resignation of both Obasanjo and the National Assembly. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), National Conscience Party (NCP), trade unions and students' unions should organise mass struggles, strikes and protests to force them out of office should they refuse to quit. In this respect, we call on the leadership of the NLC, especially the NLC president, Adams Oshiomhole, to stop its present romance with the Obasanjo administration and, instead, champion an independent working class economic and political agenda for the labour movement.

As alternative, we call for earlier elections on a genuine multi-party basis with all political parties, including NCP, being allowed to field candidates. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should be immediately re-composed to comprise representatives of all political parties.

A SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE NEEDED

What the impeachment crisis has once again revealed is the rottenness and failure of the entire Nigeria's neo-colonial capitalist economic and political structures in general and the 4th republic in particular.

The Obasanjo regime, state and local governments and all the capitalist parties are creating conditions for another military intervention through the mass disenchantment and disillusionment caused by their acts of massive looting and plundering of the nation's resources, political violence, retrenchment of workers, non-payment of salaries and pensions, implementation of numerous pro-rich, anti-poor policies of privatisation, trade liberalisation, currency devaluation, increment in price of petroleum products, removal of subsidy on social services like education, health care, transportation, etc, with the concomitant high unemployment, mass poverty, and homelessness.

Hence, the present crisis once again underscores the need for the labour movement to struggle to end the neo-colonial capitalist system and to put in power a workers' and poor peasants' government with a socialist programme. Such a government will put into pubic ownership the commanding heights of the country's economy under the democratic control and management of the working people and use society's resources to provide for the basic needs of the society. This approach is the only way by which the working masses and society in general can get out of the present capitalist rot and bring an end to corruption, money politics, political violence, mass poverty, insecurity and instability. Only this type of arrangement can bring an end to corruption and capitalist misrule by basing economy and governance on the real needs of the masses and the larger society rather than the selfish interest of a minority class of the super-rich as it is presently the case.

To actualise the above programme, labour and youth activists must consider, as a matter of immediate priority, the building of a mass independent working peoples' party which would be different in orientation, programme, policies and method from the pro-rich capitalist political parties. The NCP, NLC, NANS and other working peoples' organisations should organise a conference at which the strategy and method for the emergence of such a party would be discussed.

Continued ...