By Ayo Kehinde
A working-class advocacy group, Movement for Socialism in Nigeria, MSN, has described election under the current social and political order in Nigeria as futile efforts to bring genuine development and growth to the country.
Speaking on the just concluded February 25, 2023, Presidential and National Assembly which saw the candidate of the ruling party, APC, Bola Tinubu emerged as president-elect while his rival PDP and its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and that of Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi announced their rejection while declaring their intention to legally challenge the declared results in court, spokesperson of the group Aj Dagga Tolar said the poll has called into question the neutrality of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for going against its rules and guidelines in conducting the poll, fearing that the judiciary is far from being a neutral organ of the state.
He raised the question if the fourth republic is elastic enough to withstand “this backlash on it from the flawed elections, or will a mass movement in resistance against the neoliberal capitalist policies of deregulation and privatization, which a Tinubu presidency will remain committed to, contend with it and develop the necessary consciousness to end the rule of capital and commence the march to a working people government that will set about turning things around in the country in favour of the working masses.?
“Already the winner of the polls, Tinubu has issued a rallying call for unity in the ranks of the ruling class, that the elections are over and the need for all hands to be on deck to defend their mutual “democratic vision”. And to “former VP Atiku, former governor Kwankwaso, former governor Obi, I extend the hand of friendship”, he stated, adding that,
“The declaration of Tinubu as winner of the presidential polls has also been greeted by congratulatory message from the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The US even goes to the extent to describe it as ushering “a new period for Nigerian politics and democracy”. And China is also not left out, with the Chinese president Xi Jinping congratulating the president-elect.
“What flows from the above is that all the major power blocs of international capital and imperialism are positioning themselves to not be outdone by the other and to make more gains from the country in a manner that will exact the best advantage to the industrial west and China, to the clear disadvantage of the working masses or any pursuit of industrial development for Nigeria.”
Tolar thinks that “without a break from capitalism, the ruling class cannot turn the fortunes of the working masses around because the ruling class have no basis to break with capitalism as they are comfortable with it and benefiting from this system of greed and profit.
He said, “only the working masses can organise to end capitalism nationally and internationally. But the very first step in this direction is the building of a party of the working people by the working masses that must not only be an electoral platform, standing candidates on a working-class programme, but as well as an organising platform to defend jobs, build new industries, and access to publicly funded education, health care, and housing.
“If anything can be said about the 2023 General elections, it is the validation that Peter Obi’s entry to the presidential polls has given to the idea that the ruling class can be taken on and that a mass party can be built to take up this task. And that the LP which originally was formed by the trade unions can aspire to be a party for the whole of the working masses, with the working class playing the leadership role. This much has been known and proclaimed by Socialists long ago. And we are witnesses to how the working masses stood in the rain or even stayed up late at night to defeat the antics of late delivery of electoral materials to garnered 6 million votes cast for the LP.
“This is despite the fact that Obi continues to be a representative of Big Business and an adherent of bourgeois economics and ideology of capitalism.”
