Which Way Nigeria?

LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD; BUILDING ON THE GAINS OF THE JANUARY UPRISING![1]

[BY JAYE GASKIA: NATIONAL CONVENER, UNITED ACTION FOR DEMOCRACY (UAD); SEPT 2012]

‘The Revolution [uprising] is necessary therefore not only because it is only through it that the toiling classes can overthrow the old society and midwife a new society; but also because it is only through it that the toiling classes can remake themselves and make themselves fit for the new society’….Paraphrasing Marx.

PROVIDING A CONTEXT

Eight months after the quite glorious and edifying January Uprising, and several much smaller [in comparison] movements of popular actions in between, it seems we are once again poised on the eve of another Uprising!

What is it with our country’s ruling political and economic elites? Why are they stumbling from crisis to crisis? Why are they manifesting such ineptitude and incompetence in the management of the polity and economy of our country? Why does it seem that they are hell bent on plunging this country into the abyss?

The answer is to be found in the logic of primitive accumulation of a late developing capitalist ruling class; and in the Nigerian specific context, in the further dynamic of the intensified and competitive primitive accumulation of the most deprived fraction of that ruling class which has now found itself as a result of circumstances not of its own making at the summit of political power. In its rush to play catch up with other more advantaged section of that class, it has had to throw all caution into the wind.

It is important to clarify some descriptive concepts at this point before going any further; Glorious? Edifying? Glorious not only because it was a marvelous sight to behold, but also because it was as with every large scale more or less organised conscious self activity of the masses, a festival of the oppressed; and edifying because it was confidence building, it was uplifting, and it had its eyes firmly fixed on a new Nigeria!

Paraphrasing the words of Lenin therefore, we achieved in the final 5 days [January 9^th to 13^th] of struggle, days in which we actually took control of the streets of more than 55 cities and towns across the country, days in which we indeed OCCUPIED NIGERIA; we achieved in those short few days, much more than we had achieved in the previous 5 decades of post independence nation building by the divisive treasury pilfering Nigerian ruling class [its political, military, economic, cultural elite fractions inclusive].

It is important at this point to put the Uprising in context, to situate it within a world historic context! The uprising was part of global resistance of the exploited, impoverished and oppressed toiling and working classes against the increasingly unbearable burdens being imposed as a result of the global crises of capitalism. This global capitalist crises which is still ongoing has been total and all embracing, a merger of five or more crisis – the food crisis, the financial crisis, the economic crisis, the ecological crisis, and the political crisis engendered by the previous four!

This global capitalist crisis has also called forth a global resistance by its victims, in the classic manifestation of the ‘ruling classes not being able to rule in the old way’ and ‘the exploited classes no longer prepared to be ruled in the old ways’ [again going back to Lenin].

This was inaugurated with a series of inconclusive elections in Europe, and stolen elections in Africa! The outcome was the same. Coalition governments! No one single party being able to rule on its own! This then developed into the political revolutions of the Arab Spring and those of Europe. The result was again the same; fall and collapse of regimes and governments, establishment of transitional governments, the rise of new parties, new elections new governments etc.

Alongside the Arab spring was the wave of workers strikes and youth protest movements across Europe and the rise of the Global Occupy Movement.

The January Uprising in Nigeria was inspired by this global context, and in a sense represented the coming together of both currents in a single space.

THE ROAD TO JANUARY

What did we do in January [and on the road to January]? What did we achieve in January? What have we done since January? And what have we achieved since?

It is very important that we undertake this reflection in other for us to be able to face emergent and future challenges, and emerge with an outcome that will be a significant if not decisive improvement on the ‘outcome last time’.

On the road to the January Uprising, preparatory to it, and on its eve, we took organising and mobilising to a new level. We invaded and occupied all social spaces for discourse; we converted all those spaces to the tribune of the struggle, to platforms for raising awareness, building self confidence, building a sense of a collective, organising and mobilising for self emancipatory action. We made effective use of the new and old social media [twitter, facebook, print and broadcast media, and the internet]. We followed up, researched and countered all the arguments of the government and its leading ideologues on the Fuel Subsidy issue in particular, and the petroleum sector of the economy in general. We traced the linkages between the particular and the general, and we proffered specific and general alternatives. We armed ourselves with knowledge, and used the knowledge in the service of our people, to promote the basic needs of the common good, and not the gluttonous greed of the thieving few! The educator must his/herself be educated, so said Marx; we enlightened ourselves in order to be able to facilitate the enlightenment of the mass; and in the course of doing this, we made an enlightened mass anger possible.

We sought out and established links with new layers of activists, new to activism; we sought to revive our historic organisations of struggle, and turned them into the platform to link the old with the new, experience with talent; and we achieved the unity of the uninhibited and enlightened anger of a younger generation [untamed by the experience of repeated defeats], newly inspired by the Arab Spring and the Global Occupy Movement; we achieved its unity with the cautious determination of an experienced older generation for whom in many instances the memories of previous defeats constituted an inertia to the possibility of mass revolutionary action; The unity and struggle of opposites!

In the midst of these we sought to strengthen the alliance between all the organisations of the oppressed working classes/peoples; thence we prioritised the alliance between citizens’ organisations and the trade unions. We consolidated this into a semi formal coalition of 4 coalitions: two labour centers [NLC & TUC] and two Citizens’ coalitions [UAD & JAF].

The result of all these efforts was the JANUARY UPRISING! The uprising was in fact also prepared by decades of exploitation engendering mass poverty, mass unemployment and high inflation; it was immediately triggered by the January 1^st unprecedented hike in fuel prices!

The level of anger that greeted the January 1^st Hike needs to be explained and contextualized. Going into January manufacturing capacity utilisation had fallen consistently over the previous decade from around 45% in 2001 to less than 35% in 2011; furthermore, more than one million manufacturing jobs had been lost over the same period with the closure of more than a thousand manufacturing concerns across the country. Poverty rate was on the rise with more than 67% of the population living in relative poverty [that is more than 100 million Nigerians]. What is more, unemployment was on the rise at more than 25%, with youth unemployment standing at over 40%. And in the midst of all these crushing and grinding poverty the share of the national wealth controlled by the richest 10% of the population had topped 40%, while the share of this wealth controlled by the poorest 20% was barely 4%. The result was unprecedented levels of poverty and inequality, as well as in the gap between rich and poor. So anger had been building up and getting stoked! The January 1^st price hike was merely the proverbial ‘last straw’ which broke the Carmel’s back! The steepness of the price hike, its instantaneous impact, and its timing at a point in time when majority of the populace was out of cash due to Christmas festivities, combined to ensure the effect was felt across board almost immediately. The result was the eruption of popular anger. Trotsky in relation to revolutionary uprisings had written that ‘to a slap on the cheek people react differently, to being hit by a sledge hammer, people react the same way’!

THE JANUARY UPRISING

The Uprising, which had been promoted in its preparation as the Nigerian Harmathan [taking its cue from the Arab Spring], as well as OCCUPY NIGERIA [taking its cue from the global occupy movement]; was initiated on 3^rd of January and it kept growing witnessing its first apogee in Kano by 5^th of January. The mass all embracing Pan Nigerian phase was inaugurated on the 9^th when the two labour centers joined and began an indefinite general strike to complement indefinite mass action. It was as Labour – civil society coalition that this uprising was thenceforth prosecuted.

There were several social forces involved and more or less entangled in the January Uprising, and the uprising in its unfolding and unraveling can only be properly understood within the context of the dialectics of these social interactions of the social forces.

There were two primary alliance of social forces engaged in the uprising and which gave basic character and form to the way the uprising unfolded. On the one hand is the labour civil society coalition, primarily consisting organizationally of the two labour centers, NLC and TUC; as well as their traditional and historic allies represented organizationally by the two radical political coalitions of citizens’ organisations, the UAD and JAF. This labour-civil society coalition was the main organiser of the uprising and provided the main nationwide leadership for the uprising.

On the other hand was the alliance involving primarily the Presidency and its Federal Executive Council [FEC], the National Assembly [NASS], and The Nigeria Governors Forum [NGF].

Outside of these two broad alliances, there were other more or less organised social forces, playing more or less restricted significant roles, but primarily aligning themselves to either of the two broad alliances at the head of the class struggle.

The responses of the political parties were mixed and ambivalent. The ruling party at the federal level of course aligned itself with the government coalition. While the opposition parties and some of their prominent members aligned themselves with the uprising, nevertheless their representatives in political office aligned themselves with the anti-uprising slate led by the government coalition.

It is also true that initially there seemed to be a divide within NASS with the HoRs initially siding with the uprising. But the HoR initiative had to be sidelined and subsumed under the Government Coalition response when it became necessary to close ranks as a government and save the regime and the system from collapse.

Additionally it can also be said that there were particularly in Lagos and in Abuja strands of civil society which were outside the formal labour civil society coalition, but which nevertheless oriented themselves and aligned themselves with the labour civil society coalition and the uprising.

In Lagos, this was prominently represented by the Save Nigeria Group; and in Abuja by the BLUF [Building Leverage and Understanding In Fuel Subsidy Struggle] Group, which unlike the SNG, had actually adopted the UAD-JAF representation and platform as its own and thus saw and defined itself as an extension of the Labour Civil Society Coalition.

Thus it was that all the contacts and processes towards resolving the crisis were between the primary protagonists.

THE DEMANDS OF THE JANUARY UPRISING

It is important that we now turn to a quick examination and overview of the Explicit and Implicit demands of the January Uprising.

The explicit demand of the January Uprising, around which there was utmost consensus by its organisers and coordinators was the demand for total reversal of petrol prices to the pre January 1^st prices. This demand was captured as ’65 NAIRA OR NOTHING’.

But associated with this explicit demand were other demands, including sanitation of the petroleum sector, ensuring adequate domestic refining capacity, putting an end to fuel importation, unmasking of the cabal in the sector, probe, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators and perpetuators of corrupt practices and fraud in the fuel subsidy regime, among others.

However, also implicit in the explicit demand, but around which there was scant discussion and little consensus among the partners, was what to do if the regime remained recalcitrant and if we refused to accept anything other than total reversal of price.

It was obvious that what we were asking for was a total policy reversal. And we had backed this up by pronouncing and showing our determination to organise indefinite mass action and general strike. In such a context, it is to be expected that something would have to give; either we cave in, the regime caves in, or failing both; the regime is supplanted by a new regime willing to meet our demands. This was the real IMPLICIT DEMAND of the January Uprising

And it was around this that the labour civil society coalition fractured and unraveled at the decisive moment.

The different structural types and organisational traditions of the labour centers on the one hand, and their citizens’ organisations coalition allies on the other hand clashed.

The trade unions were not political platforms to overthrow governments, much less overthrow capital; they were organisations to mediate between capital and labour, between particular employers or governments and their employees.

When confronted with the revolutionary implications of their actions, the labour centers recoiled in a knee jerk reaction, and more or less consciously embarked on the road of negotiating a separate exit that it felt was less injurious to its organisation.

The citizens’ coalitions who had anticipated the implicit demand and tried to prepare the mass uprising for it, were left in the lurch, and could not proceed further inspite of its desires and anger at labour, largely because the action of the labour centers had already served to demoralize the platform and was already spreading disillusionment among the rank and file.

The coalition suffered a temporary setback, the effect of which is still being felt even today, and the day was saved for the ruling class and its government.

THE ROAD SINCE JANUARY

What have we achieved? It is important that we are first able to identify the gains of the January Uprising before we are able to consolidate on them!

During the January Uprising tens of millions of ordinary Nigerians, working persons forced their way unto the historical stage, becoming active citizens, shaping their own destinies. Millions took part in mass actions across more than 55 cities and towns, across all six geo-political zones of the country. We achieved not one, not two, but several Tarhir Squares across Nigeria, and although Lagos and Abuja were the epicenters, equally magnificient and unprecedented moments were repeated in Kano, in Kaduna, In Ibadan, In Abeokuta, In PortHarcourt, In Calabar, In Kebbi, In Sokoto, In Laffia, In Lokoja, in Ilorin, etc, etc, etc, across the length and breadth of this country.

In 10 glorious and edifying days, We Occupied Together, acted together, organised together, mobilised together, prayed together, marched together, ate together, danced and sang together, we suffered the privations and depravations together; and we dared to dream and think of, to envision a new Nigeria. And in doing all that we did in January, we changed the course of our collective national history together!

We have changed the nature of public discourse, in its content and form, for a generation! Now everyone with access to the internet and with contact with any social media have become increasingly informed commentators on national issues and governance.

We achieved in two weeks of struggle what we could not achieve in the previous two decades of budget tracking and advocacy! Most Nigerians who now comment on national affairs have become avid budget analysts, trackers and advocates!

In the immediate aftermath of the uprising we also saw a rash on committees set up to probe and investigate happenings in the sector. We now have a fair idea of the mind boggling scale and scope of corruption; and of the culprits, in and out of government. We have put faces to the cabal; and we are forcing a quite reluctant government to take action against indicted thieves.

The effort to sanitise the sector is being reinvigorated, new life it seems is being breathed into the petroleum industry bill [PIB] initiative; there is now a verification mechanism put in place to determine who actually qualifies to be paid for fuel products import; while there is also a new system to register and track petroleum products transportation and distribution across the country. There is also renewed motion with respect to optimizing refining capacity of the existing refineries and facilitating the establishment of new refineries.

And of course all of these gains are still tentative, they are not yet irreversible given the entrenched nature of the social forces who are the beneficiaries of this monumental corruption and impunity. It is why it has seemed like every inch of progress that we have made have had to be literally dragged out of the hands of an unwilling and hesitant government; it is why we need to remain eternally vigilant.

One thing is definite however, without the January Uprising, and the April 23^rd and June 28^th actions, we would not have made this amount of progress!

The most decisive gain of the January Uprising however, is the awakened political consciousness of the ordinary Nigerian citizens, the realization that corruption is a systemic and an integral part of the DNA of the Nigerian ruling elite and the Nigerian mode of capitalist production; and that this corruption is now the single most significant obstacle to socio-economic and human development of our country, as well as the single most important driver of impunity in governance.

This realization is crystalising in the awareness of the urgent necessity for a political alternative, the need to wrest political power from this treasury looting ruling class. This most decisive gain of the January Uprising, if consolidated upon, may well become the springboard for the inauguration of the most germane social transformative experience for our country come 2015 and leading to it.

If this were to happen, then the objective to OCCUPY Nigeria proclaimed during the January Uprising would be fully realised in the 2015 transformative general elections with new social forces organised politically.

How might we achieve this concrete realization of our goal to OCCUPY NIGERIA, To Take Back Nigeria; and to undertake a most significant socio-economic and political transformation of our country and the organisation of human civilization in our time?

We need not only to remain eternally vigilant; but to also ensure that we maintain and expand on our organisational structure, build them up until they are strong enough to lead an uprising on to revolutionary victory.

Herein lies the most significant lesson of the January Uprising; the urgent necessity to build a pan Nigerian political platform to lead the struggle to unseat and supplant this treasury looting ruling class and initiate the Nigerian Social Revolution as an integral part of the world social revolution.

IN LIEU OF A CONCLUSION; TOWARDS A SECOND JANUARY UPRISING?

We began by asking why this ruling class is lurching from crisis to crisis. It failed understand the level of class exploitation and alienation in society prior to January 2012, hence its unprecedented hiking of petrol prices on January 1^st. It is once again showing signs of this same inability to understand the context of poverty and level of class exploitation and alienation of the working masses again leading to another January.

All through 2012 since the January uprising, it has continued to increase the burden on the working masses; electricity tarrif hikes, rising inflation occassioned by the fuel price increases; demolitions of the homes and livelihoods of the poor and their evictions; and all of these amidst unprecedented levels of corruption and impunity!

And as if these are not enough, it has once again announced another potentially steep inflationary measure to commence January 2013: The printing of 5,000 Naira notes and its attendant impact on cost of living.

The impact of this measure, against the backdrop of the cumulative impact of the policies of the regime all through 2012 will be as, if not much more, devastating and anger provoking as the hiking of fuel prices in January 2012.

The result will potentially be the same: Massive outburst of organised and mobilised anger: The January Uprising Reloaded!

Only this time, we must make sure that the outcome is different than the last time.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UPRISING AND REVOLUTION

So why was the January Uprising necessary? Why are future uprisings necessary? And why is the Revolution such a significant thing that needs to happen?

We end on the note on which we began, going back to Marx;

‘The Revolution [uprising] is necessary therefore not only because it is only through it that the toiling classes can overthrow the old society and midwife a new society; but also because it is only through it that the toiling classes can remake themselves and make themselves fit for the new society’.

Simply put, the only way to midwife a new society, one based on justice and equity; one that will redistribute wealth and transform both the mode, as well as, the relations of production; one that will remove and supplant an exploitative and repressive class and system, and broaden democracy [economic and political] to include all hitherto exploited and repressed classes; the only way to found such a new society is through a revolution.

Conversely, on the other hand, the only way hitherto exploited and oppressed classes and peoples, condemned to a life of grinding poverty, drudgery, powerlessness, and even crime, by the old society; the only way such people and classes can make themselves fit for the new society, rehumanise themselves and cleanse themselves from the ghosts and heavy burden of the old society, and become transformed into new persons, building a new experience of human civilization is through their active involvement and participation in the revolution.

To use the analogy of the factory of industrial capitalism therefore, the revolution is thus not only the ‘forcible intrusion of the masses unto the stage of history’ [Trotsky], it is also a massive workshop where on the one hand, oppressed and exploited classes are refined, and transformed into new work-persons, fitted with new skills and competences, with which to make the new society; and also where on the other hand, the new society is being fashioned out of the old society, by this newly transforming work-persons!

And the revolution is a series of uprisings in dialectical relationship with one another. To deepen the analogy of the factory, it is a giant factory with a number of workshops, all interlinked with one another, all of whose bits of products goes and fits into the final product.

It is in this sense of the dual creational function of the revolution and the uprisings of which it is composed, that we can speak of the transformative impact of the January Uprising, not only on the society, our country, but also on the people, the citizens who made the uprising.