By Ambassador Usman Sarki
“Ideals are all very well in their way, but they are apt to become very dim lamps unless often replenished from the world of facts and trimmed and adjusted by wholesome criticism”, John Buchan
“They have not to recapitulate the past, but to build up the future”, Karl Marx
The ideals and purposes that motivated the Nigerian “Left” since the 1960s to the late 1980s, have become dim lamps of imperceptible brightness that no longer shine with determination and grandeur. Once undertaken as a venture towards ushering in a new dispensation in the country based on egalitarian principles of politics and governance, today the “Left” has given way to opportunistic tendencies that seem to control and shape the trend of politics in Nigeria, that represent more of a setback rather than progress in the march of democracy in the country. It is therefore timely and appropriate that the conditions of the “Left” are subjected to a “wholesome criticism” as suggested by Mr. John Buchan, where we could replenish the movement’s purposes from the worlds of facts and to trim and adjust its progressive and patriotic contours in order to rescue the nation.
A quiet and imperceptible change took place in Nigeria in 2015. Beyond the boisterous enthusiasm of the electorate and the outpouring of jubilation on to the streets when the All-Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner of the elections that year, a veritable shift took place in power relations in Nigeria that presented possibilities for the re-emergence of a popular platform to effect a permanent change in the country’s governance. The 2015 elections represented the peaceful transfer of power within the ruling class brought about by mass discontent and popular pressure. The change in 2015 also exposed two different dispensations and tendencies in the ruling class in Nigeria, that portended toward the possibility of revitalizing radical and progressive politics in the country, and the revival of a genuinely people-oriented political movement.
The implosion of the mainly bourgeois People’s Democratic Party (PDP) between 2014 and 2015 that led to its demise and ouster from power, freed the political space for another party, the All-Progressives Congress (APC) to step into the vacuum through popular democratic election. Thus, this transfer of power and its rotation within one class but with slightly different tendencies and persuasions, was crucial to the deepening of the struggle to enthrone a people’s party in power in Nigeria. Not only that, the 2015 elections represented a watershed in the political dynamics of the country as far as popular participation in politics is concerned. The fact that the APC itself was a composite mixture of different tendencies within the bourgeois, the elite and working classes that coalesced around the sentiments of opposition to the ruling PDP, meant that its focus was narrow and its ideological purposes and outlooks were shallow and unwholesome.
According to the late Prof Claude Ake, the UPN would have made the struggle for socialism pointless because it would have run the system so efficiently
The change of ruling parties in 2015 can be termed a “revolution” in the tepid Nigerian context, since for the first time, it represented the ouster from power of one bourgeois party by another through a popular democratic process. That “revolution” however, was the conscious and deliberate exercise by the masses of their franchise to elect a leader based on their own perception and understanding of his qualities and what he stood for. To that extent, the Nigerian masses elected not a political party (the APC), but chose a personality to actualize their aspiration for change and restoration of decency in governance, that seemed to have been lost in the sixteen years’ rule of the People’s Democratic Party. This must be a lesson to the Nigerian “Left” and progressive movement in terms of relying on the sense of discernment of the people.
The election of General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) on the groundswell of popular discontent with the suffocating and profligate rule of the PDP and the yearning for change, ushered in a popular and seemingly spontaneous movement across the country, with the exception of a few isolated spots in some parts, notably in the South-East and the South-South, where the PDP was still seen as the party of choice. The lesson to be drawn by the progressive movement from this is that, integrity ultimately matters and that the masses have an eye for credible leadership untarnished by corruption and the sordid attachment to materialistic interests in life. The epitome of this lifestyle was of course the late Mallam Aminu Kano. What the progressive elements today should stand for should be a common understanding and appreciation of the value of integrity and probity, as well as the eschewing of materialism as the main qualities of the leadership of their movement.
The acknowledged integrity of President Muhammadu Buhari, his aura of incorruptibility and innate sense of duty, justice and humility, were the factors that endeared him to Nigerians and largely persuaded them to elect him into office. The lesson for the progressive movement here is that much as ideology matters in the formation and articulation of the movement’s purposes and objectives, practical precepts in leadership qualities should also not be ignored as the indispensable requirements for its acceptability by the masses. As such, any future dispensation in the Nigerian “Left” must take into consideration personal qualities and merits of its vanguard elements in the struggle, and the successful composition of its leadership.
A progressive movement that lays no stress on integrity of its leadership is bound to be superficially doctrinaire and ideologically shallow, and become trapped in the quagmire of controversy and self-advancement only. The fate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) the “Center-Left” party in the late 1980s, should serve as a lesson to everyone with the inclination towards a truly leftist agenda in Nigeria. The SDP failed precisely because it was unable to chart a clear course and adopt an agenda that distinguished it from the military imposed party structures of the day. The SDP’s failure to identify itself with the demands of the masses for genuine democracy and an end to military rule merely placed it in the same league and cluster as the other bourgeois political party, the National Republican Convention (NRC).
In the end, when their usefulness was no longer needed, both parties were easily swept away by military machinations and the lack of deep roots in a genuinely popular struggle towards the restoration of democracy in the country. From the ideological and popular standpoints, the “revolution” of 2015 in the attitude of the people, could be likened to the euphoric changes that took place during the 1950s right up to the early 1980s when the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and its offshoot the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) consistently created the conditions for enthronement of radical political action especially in the Northern parts of the country. The fact that the PRP between 1979 and 1983 managed to capture two politically significant States in the North – Kano and Kaduna, spoke considerably of its ability to create dynamism and exploit latent and innate tendencies among the masses to capture power in certain locations.
The PRP also remained the only popular political party in Nigeria’s history that did not collapse or succumb to the temptation of merger with another party thereby losing its individual revolutionary identity and purpose. That should be the strength of the revived revolutionary party at this time of the struggle of the forces of the “Left” in Nigeria. The PRP’s victory in Kano and Kaduna demonstrated that with organization and perseverance, the masses could be brought over to see the value of radical politics and the merits of progressive tendencies in advancing the popular struggle. The seeking of power is nothing but the deepening of the struggle whichever side of the political coin the movement or party belongs to.
Founding fathers!
The axiomatic lesson today, after experiencing so-called democratic rule from 1999 onwards, is that the election of a popular personality in itself is not a panacea to advancing this struggle, but rather a hesitant and tentative attempt at exploration of the fringes of change with a view to establishing the framework to failure. Genuine change therefore, must entail a revolution. Revolution in turn must be characterized by seizure of the political space by the revolutionary power from the persuasion that it replaced, and the establishment of the means of appropriation of governance. This should be the sole motive force and task of the revolutionary movement and of the class that drives its dynamics.
The parties that came to power could not translate themselves into genuinely revolutionary parties that are committed to real change because of their class characters and their unpreparedness to follow this revolution to its logical and historical ends, and seize the unique opportunity presented to them by the occasion. That hesitant tendency that is characteristic of all bourgeois politics, has today proven to the Nigerian public the incapacity of the existing parties to present a viable and credible alternatives to the former dispensations that they superseded in the country in terms of governance and corrective posture. For instance, much as one party was perceived in far better light than the other in 2015 in terms of moral construction and persuasive advocacy of change for the better, the fact remains that both the parties today are the different sides of the same coin politically.
They are both representative of tendencies that are far removed from the interests of the masses especially in the running of the affairs of government and reorienting the posture and strategic purposes of the State. Their inability to transform themselves has manifested in the splits in their ranks with defections here and there from one camp to another driven by opportunistic thinking and survival instincts. These trends actually represent the deep crises in the moral and political make-up of the country and the composition of the existing parties. The crises are also nothing but a continuation of the contests within the ruling classes that emerged in 2015 as a result of the dislocation of State power and its undermining by massive and profligate corruption at both the center and the periphery of government. The greatest failure of the political parties is their inability to infuse their ideologies into the governance structures of the country, and embed their visions of change and a corruption-free society into the framework of administration in the country.
The parties that ruled the country had every opportunity between 1999 to date to transform Nigeria’s governance and politics from bourgeois oriented activities to popularly driven actions that mainly catered for the majority of the people. Alas, through their inaction and preoccupation with ruling but not effectively governing, they lost every chance and the necessary credibility to create the desired momentum to effect genuine change and transformation in the country. The fact that the civil service, the security services and the other arms of the State were all left alone in their former shapes without any thought of their transforming to reflect the ruling parties’ ideological postures, meant that their transformation agendas were ab initio not meant to be far-reaching and deep rooted.
The crises in the political arrangements in the country also reflect the absence of a focused transformative agenda that has at its core an identifiable and persuasive revolutionary programme that is attractive to the masses. The absence of any conceivable machinery within the existing parties and the governments that they led especially in the manner of a mass mobilization organs that build and perpetuate consciousness, is the greatest pitfall into which the parties seemed to have fallen today, from which their reclamation could be rather a difficult task. The grab for power within the ruling class that is now playing itself out between and among the different political groupings in the country amply demonstrate the lack of a discernible agenda that could represent this change and transformation that the masses have yearned for.
A big vacuum therefore is created now that will continue to widen and require filling by a new progressive force, possibly in alliance with the left wings of the APC and the PDP if at all such factions exist at the moment. The absence of a viable alternative to the “Right” in the country’s political landscape has always been the bane of progressive politics in Nigeria. This is now truer than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. This state of affairs must be examined critically with the aim of understanding the dynamics that led to the virtual disappearance of the “Left” as an alternative force from the political spectrum of Nigeria. It also requires the development of strategies and tactics to revive the struggle and enthrone such a movement at the center of the transformational dialogue and actions in the country.
The new progressive movement should therefore, at this early stages, concern itself more with organizational matters and selection of leaders than aiming at getting elected into offices. This understanding will in turn call for some clear and deep reflections and development of strategies towards mobilization and sensitization of the masses. The priority agendas to be followed now should encompass issues related to governance and the defining of the movement’s objectives and outlooks. At the moment, while building its organs and structures, the movement should address its mind to such vital issues of political importance and critical aspects of governance that will warrant its long-term acceptability by the masses. There are some unavoidable matters now and for the foreseeable future, that would occupy the time and energy of the movement in formulating answers to them.
