Forces In The Current
Power Struggle In Nigeria
In
its 75-year history, the Nigerian Left has had tremendous impact not only among
the working and toiling masses and the “wretched of the earth”, but across the
social formation and in the country’s political process. But that impact has
been dissipated like steam not enclosed in a pistonbox!
By Edwin Madunagu
Although participation in “bourgeois politics”—as we used to
call electoral politics—has never been absent from the Nigerian Left’s general
programme, it has also not been made a “categorical imperative”. I am, however,
now persuaded that it has become generally accepted in the ranks of
contemporary Nigerian Leftists that intervention and participation in the
country’s electoral struggle—for office or for power, as an organized political
force and in alliance or acting separately—have become both categorical and
urgent. The following notes are offered as a searchlight in support of this
anticipated revised programme of the Nigerian Left. The Left should see the
political terrain more clearly.
The contradictions highlighted may assist the Left in
deciding on alliances if that political strategy favourably suggests itself.
But the Left should, first of all, construct a serious and viable organization
and develop a people’s manifesto. My notes will be presented in three steps.
Step One: Unity and disunity in Nigeria’s ruling class: A
proposition I made in a recent piece, Movements of Nigeria’s ruling class (June
1, 2018), goes like this: “Nigeria’s ruling class is characterized by this
duality: On the one hand, as a national ruling class, it is fundamentally
united by capitalism (as dominant mode of production) and capitalist rules and
logic (which unite and run the entire economy). On the other hand, the class is
divided by many things: history, places and roles in the economy,
primitive/primary accumulation of capital, ethnicity, regionalism, religion,
culture, etc.” I may add that the class is also divided—at a secondary level—by
differences in education, exposure and personal development.
It is because the ruling class is united that it is able to
enforce, protect and defend its collective interests against the interests of
other classes and strata, and be able to close ranks at critical times when its
rule, as class rule, is challenged. We may look at just two illustrations. Why
has the National Assembly, which has been engaged in so many civil wars, not
been able to engage in a serious debate on its scandalous emoluments since the
birth of the Fourth Republic? And why has the Federal Executive Council or the
Presidency not thought of reviewing the “contract system”—knowing full well
that it is the biggest source of corruption and state robbery?
On the other hand, it is because the ruling class is
disunited along the lines indicated above—and other lines—that it has, within
its ranks, different political parties, factions of political parties,
different “sociopolitical” and “sociocultural” groups, secret cults and
fraternities, insurgent groups, elders’ and thought-leaders’ forums, criminal
gangs, mafias, etc, etc.
The ruling class of Nigeria is engaged in two simultaneous
struggles: one external and the other internal. The external struggle is the
struggle against the other classes, groups and strata which the ruling class
dominates and exploits. The internal struggle is the range of battles going on
within the class between factions and groupings earlier listed. The president
heads two fighting forces. He heads the ruling class in its fight against the
oppressed; and he heads the hegemonic faction of the ruling class against the
other factions. If he loses one of the two positions, or both positions, he may
still remain in office, but not in power.
Step Two: Nature of politics and power struggle: Let us
define a social formation as a “society or social structure at any level (such
as a nation, city, business, university or even a family) with all its
complexities (economic, political and ideological relations) as it is
historically constituted.” Nigeria is a social formation. And this social
formation is called capitalist not because capitalist relations of production
are the only relations in the economy. No. There can be, as in Nigeria, several
pre-capitalist and non-capitalist modes of production in an economy designated
as capitalist. Nigeria is called capitalist not only because the capitalist
mode of production dominates in the economy, but also because the logic and rules
of capitalist exploitation govern the administration, reproduction and
development of Nigeria as a social formation.
The main proposition here is that politics is played and
political power struggles are waged “holistically” at the level of the social
formation—as different from other forms of struggles (economic, ideological,
cultural, etc), which are waged at “sectoral levels”. For instance: a party of
the ruling class does not address only members of its class when campaigning
for votes. It addresses the social formation.
Similarly, a revolutionary socialist party should not
address only the toiling and working masses— although these are in overwhelming
majority. It must address all classes and groups including the oppressors and
exploiters— because it aspires to rule over and transform society as a
whole—for the good of all.
The language of politics is therefore different from that of
economic struggle. For instance: The language of labour disputes—which accept
the fact of capitalist ownership—should be different from the language of
disputes over factory ownership! Similarly, the language of minimum wage
struggles should be different from the language of struggles to occupy Aso Rock
and determine labour policies!
Step Three: Forces in Nigeria’s current power struggle. This
third and final step consists of applications of the preceding steps to the
current political battles. We may first look at the ruling class parties,
properly so called. They include, in the main, the All Progressives Congress
(APC), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the All Progressives Grand Alliance
(APGA), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the newly energized African
Democratic Congress (ADC).
Of these five political formations, the first two (APC and
PDP) are nation-wide in spread; they are stronger than the others; and the
balance of power within each of them reflects the balance of power within the
ruling class as a whole. In other words, each of APC and PDP, though national,
has centres of gravity—like the ruling class itself. APGA is limited
geopolitically by history and current practice. SDP and ADC aspire to be like
APC and PDP in geopolitical spread. From the point of view of the Left, the
only concrete difference between these five thoroughly capitalist formations is
in their positions on the “national question”, specifically “federalism” and
“restructuring”.
One particular point in the preceding paragraph should be
lifted and underlined. And this is the fact that each of APC and PDP—and
perhaps, SDP and ADC in the future—reflects the unity and disunity (that is the
contradictions) in the country’s ruling class (as described in Step One). So,
when a particular national political
