At last, a platform with socialist orientation is speaking out on the on-going competing interpretations of the February 25th, 2023 presidential election. In what appears to be the closest to the socialist position, the Joint Action Front, (JAF) says it does not support any of the candidates because they are all, in its estimation, pro-capitalist candidates but it grants them what it calls their democratic rights to challenge the outcome of the elections, including with protests.
Instead of this or that candidate, JAF is re-stating its preference for mass action against capitalist policies conditioned on the unity of the working people, poor masses and the youth against ethnicisation of electoral competition.
JAF said in a statement made available to Intervention by Abiodun Aremu, its Secretary, that the way forward for Nigerians is system change. By that, it means a social order “which can guarantee the socio-economic transformation, of our society…” Its long argumentation of the new social order which it says it posted since 2005 is quoted in full here:
“Nigeria is rich. The wealth belongs to the people. Most Nigerians are hungry, have no jobs, no education, no healthcare, no potable water, no electricity supply and no affordable transportation. Most cannot feed their families or educate their children. Those who are lucky to have jobs are not much different. They also cannot afford a decent living for their families. On the other hand, there is a very tiny group of Nigerians who have cornered the wealth that belong to the working people and the poor, who are in the majority. They loot the treasury and use their stolen wealth to sustain themselves in power through their political parties. They use their power to get richer and richer when the poor get poorer and poorer. This is the system of exploitation and oppression. It is the system that brings out the army and the police to kill poor people when they protest against oppression and exploitation. We want to change that system and replace it with a system where the working people and the millions of people who are sufferings under the system of exploitation will win power and ensure that the wealth of Nigeria is used to ensure a good life for the majority of the people who are now exploited and oppressed. System change is not replacing one exploiter’s government by another exploiter’s government. It is replacing an exploiter’s government by a people’s government to reorganise Nigeria and put an end to exploitation and oppression!
The pillars of JAF’s standpoint are:
- The Joint Action Front (JAF) notes from reports by media and local and international observers the presidential election held on February 25 was characterized by different flaws, irregularities and acts of violence including voter suppression. Moreover, contrary to the guideline of the Independent National Electoral Commission itself, results were not uploaded right at polling units, something that casts a serious doubt on the integrity of the results declared. Therefore, this suggests that all the winners in the election are products of a flawed process.
- For the presidential contest, JAF holds that there are no fundamental differences in the programs of the four leading candidates as they all subscribe to the same anti-poor capitalist policies which are responsible the past 24 years of economic and social woes despite huge human and material resources of the country. Nonetheless, we hold that the result of the presidential election and subsequent elections must be a true reflection of the democratic decision of the Nigerian electorates who voted.
- While JAF does not support any of the pro-capitalist candidates, we acknowledge their democratic rights to challenge the outcome of the elections, including with protests. However, we call on the working masses not to have illusions in any of the capitalist gladiators given their common anti-poor neo-liberal program. Rather, working masses and youth should be prepared to resist any capitalist attack including fuel price hike, naira devaluation, commercialization of public university education, etc that may be unleashed regardless of whoever is the President from May 29. We also condemn the worsening of economic hardship by the autocratic Buhari government with its crazy and inhuman policies of demonetization and urge the NLC and TUC to organize a series of mass action that can force the regime to reverse the decision.
- We condemn the stoking up of ethnic tension ahead of the governorship election on March 18, 2023, especially in Lagos. We call on working people, who share the same exploitation and oppression by the governments at all levels regardless of ethnic or religious background, not to allow themselves to be divided along ethnic lines by different section of the capitalist elites over their self-serving and class interests. We condemn attack on any group or individuals because of their choice in the election and call for a democratic, multi-ethnic and religious defence committee in communities to organize resistance against such a barbaric act.
- By and large, we hold that the fact the result of the presidential election largely shows an ethnic and religious pattern with a few exceptions like Lagos, underscores that the need for a pan Nigerian mass working peoples party. Such a mass party with socialist policies can unite the ordinary people and melt the primordial sentiment usually exploited by different sections of the capitalist elite to line ordinary people of their ethnic or religious background behind themselves for their own self-serving class interest. We of the JAF are committed to supporting any effort at building such a party including reclaiming and rebuilding of the current Labour Party as a step towards building a mass movement for system change.
JAF has moved from orthodox working class agency to the broader terrain of the poor and the youth. But Intervention can report that its mobilisational footprints cannot be found within the spaces of these categories. While (financial) resources might account for that, paucity of radical democratic orientation among socialists in Nigeria might explain that better. In much of Nigerian socialist politics, the practices, the language and the audiences are still the directive principles of the radical interruption. And so, on a potentially explosive stalemate as the contrasting interpretations on the outcome of the February 25th, 2023 election, it is still morning on creation day from the socialist establishment.
