From (1). It has also turned out that
both the ethno-nationalist, geopolitical and confessional divides in Nigeria
had become veritable instrument in the hand of global imperialism and
especially in respect of USA’s alleged “war on terror” By 2009, US secretary of
state, Hillary Clinton, was already insisting that Boko-Haram had links with Al-Qaeda
thus providing a template for mainstreaming: Boko Haram into US ‘s war on
terror and providing excuses for US’s intelligent and military organization to
openly take control of Nigeria’s police and related security outfits barking
orders at them and issuing self-serving security alerts to Nigeria people.
Although it is common knowledge that USA
has been taking to the Taliban since 2005 or so and seeking diplomatic and
political solutions to the crisis in Afghanistan, US and EU officials
periodically ask their Nigerian clones not to dialogue with Boko Haram. So they
can continue to profit from weapons supplies and security contracts. It is, indeed,
the fact that Al-Qaeda was the creation of USA
which has continued to collaborate with and fund it, in Libya, Iran
and Syria.
These were the general state
of affairs in the build up to the announcement of President Jonathan of the
removal of what he called “fuel subsidy” on January 1, 2012. About the same
day, announcement was made by faceless ‘northern” organizations that
southerners should leave the north. The two announcements compounded the
atmosphere of shock and confusion engendered by the Christmas Day bombing at
mandella.
There is th story that the
announcement of “fuel susbsidy” removal was timed to exploit the shock and awe
that generally existed in Nigeria
and the deepening of the ethnic and religions fissures that ethnic and religion
hegemonies have imposed on Nigeria.
It was to the eternal credit
of Nigeria’s working people, the youth, the oppressed and their allies
generally, and it was a major boost to the solidarity of the marginalized
masses of Nigerians that they rejected (via strike and protests). Definitively,
government’s attempts to impose over 100% fuel price increase on the country. That
popular response was of course, in spite of government’s massive blackmail,
arm-twisting and division tactics, duplicity of the state governors and naked
use of force by government at both federal and state levels.
There is of course no
question that Jonathan’s government and its well-funded supporters lost the
“fuel subsidy” argument. It I now clear that what has always been funded was
not any “subsidy” but stealing by government’s agents and their friends- those
who fund their elections and “buy” various assets that are being looted through
“subsidies” and auctioning. And, as it is now turning out, government is merely
using the subsidy argument to abandon and kill government refineries and hand
over the entire petroleum industry to their local and foreign friends and
fronts (deregulation) who are now been promised licenses to establish
refineries. Imperialists and their local agents are thus re-conquering Nigeria without
firing a single shot.
Three important lesson have
emerged from the electoral contests of 2011, the ethnic and religion violence
that have occurred in Nigeria in the last several months, the economic war
(typified by fuel increase of January 2012 and the current threat of sack 50%
of civil servants) which the ruling circles across political party line have
declared on the Nigerian people and the response of organized labour and “civil
society” organizations (CSOs) to the war. First, ethnic and religion
antipathies will continue to be manipulated to divide and rule the masses of
Nigerians who are forced periodically behind various factions of rulings class
during electoral contests. Secondly, the same ethnic and religion antipathies
will continue to be manipulated to subvert the solidarity of the oppressed each
time they struggle to liberate themselves from the shackles of IMF and World
Bank policies which will be imposed with greater intensity by their local
agents. Thirdly, predictable lack of preparedness and naivety, if not outright
treachery, of those who are committed to the libration of Nigeria from imperialism
and its indigenous proxies, civil war, generalized state terror and barbarism,
must return to the drawing board.
In internalizing these
lessons we need to reflect on the evolution of te so-called civil society
organizations, NGOs etc and understand them as social-engineering paradigms
which emerged with the ascendancy of neo-colonialism privatization and liberal
democracy. In tis paradigm, thise who seized Nigeria’s wealth also have seized
political power at various levels. In that situation the difference among what
they call political parties is the amount of what they looted that they want to
release to the masses, the ultimate owners of the wealth they have seized. This
is why the most important element of their campaign is regionalism, tribalism
and religion. That is also why it is so easy for member of the ruling circles
to migrate from one party to another.
When we, in the socialist
movement, intervened in the “human right” movement and the so-called
‘pro-democracy” movement in the mid 1980, we did so to drive home these lesson
to our people. We intervened to let people know that Nigeria’s labouring people across
ethnic and confessional divides and across generational divides, must build
their own political platform to engage the ruling class in th short-term and in
the long-term. Inspite of the limitation of the NCP and the labour party that
was the raison d’etre for the establishment.
Under neo-liberalism, i.e.
the ideology of the current available political platforms in Nigeria the
possibility for even a welfare state is an illusion. This fact necessitates a
fighting party of the oppressed. This is because what they call democracy under
this dispensation is a fraud. That fighting party has to have a socialist
program. The programme insists that Nigeria
must be owned by Nigeria’s
working people.
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