Nigeria’s
Fourth Republic, which is currently running, was born on May 29, 1999—with
Olusegun Obasanjo as inaugural executive president. A year later, on May 29,
2000, the president proclaimed May 29 of every year Nigeria’s “Democracy Day”.
The day was also added to the list of the country’s national public holidays.
It was a unilateral executive decision—by which I mean that neither the
proclamation of “Democracy Day” nor the declaration of public holiday was
endorsed, before the acts, by the constitution or any legislative body or any
other institution of the Nigerian state or any organized public opinion.
It is a fact
of the Nigerian history that President Olusegun Obasanjo’s executive
proclamation and declaration were criticized, at that time, by the National
Assembly, parties other than the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), state
assemblies and governments other than those controlled by the PDP,
popular-democratic and pro-democracy formations, political pressure groups,
large segments of the press, organisations of the Nigerian Left and a wide
range of prominent and respected public and private figures.
Some entities
who had the will and power to do so went beyond criticism to active and practical
opposition and rejection or counter-proclamations and declarations. For
instance, several organisations and a number of state government declared June
12 (the anniversary of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential elections) as
their “Democracy Day”.
We may now
add, as a footnote, that on June 6, 2018, after 19 consecutive annual
celebrations, President Muhammadu Buhari announced a shift of Nigeria’s
“Democracy Day” from May 29 to June 12. Some say that the action was political.
Of course, it was. And why should it not be? It was as political as his failure
to do so for three full years he had been in power; and it was as political as
the failure of Presidents Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan to do so from 2000 to
2015. There are, in fact, more actions the president can take to further enhance
his 2019 re-election chances!
Back to the
original declaration of May 29 as Nigeria’s “Democracy Day”. Three grounds of
criticism stood out at that time: that the proclamation and declaration were
unilateral; that a number of other days in our national history—including June
12—were more important than May 29; and that, in a sense, the proclamation of
“Democracy Day” was a mockery because the processes leading up to May 29, 1999
were thoroughly undemocratic.
That the
“Democracy Day” has, in recent years, been celebrated with fanfare by all the
decisive segments of Nigeria’s political class and the Nigerian state is an
indication of how much has changed in the politics of Nigeria’s ruling class
since the inauguration of the Fourth Republic. And the incumbent president’s
act of June 6, 2018, is the latest measure of the balance of political forces
in the country as a whole, and in the ruling class in particular.
It is also
politically and ideologically significant that large segments of the nation’s
popular-democratic and mass organisations are now as enthusiastic as the
Nigerian State and the political class in the celebration of “Democracy Day”—a
celebration that received the harshest criticism from the public at the beginning
of the Fourth Republic. At a personal level, no fewer than 20 Nigerians (female
and male, young and old, poor and not-too-poor) greeted me on Tuesday, May 29,
2018 with “Happy Democracy Day!”
We may finally
note—before we go to the main subject of this discussion—that, for the Nigerian
state, the various governments, the ruling class as a whole, the political
parties, segments and factions of the political class (those in power and those
out of power), this year’s Democracy Day—together with the politics around it—was
a big national opportunity to rehearse campaign and propaganda messages, and
“test-run” the machines designed for delivering them.
But it was a
lie, a huge mockery of the nation and the masses who labour, in pains and
hunger, and almost in despair, to sustain and reproduce it! And older
compatriots are painfully aware that for some time now, there has been this
growing tendency on the part of the Nigerian state and its governments to erode
the integrity of Workers’ Day by dominating and even attempting to appropriate
what used to be an autonomous workers’ event.
The preceeding
notes, especially the last two paragraphs, may serve as introduction to what I
now propose as the central tasks of the Nigerian Left in the next 12 months—that
is, from now through the next general elections and up to and beyond the
inauguration of a new set of administrations on May 29, or June 12, 2019. In
this 20th year of “democracy” the Nigerian Left will have to
concentrate and focus on a limited number of fundamental tasks in areas of organization,
education and electoral politics.
It is
necessary to preface the listing of tasks with some clarifications. First: For those who ask the question—either
sincerely or cynically—I assert that the Nigerian Left exists. It exists in
several forms: historical, ideological, political and organizational. In fact,
the Nigerian Left is one of the oldest tendencies in Nigerian politics. Born
during the colonial era, it developed through the decolonisation and post-colonial
periods and has continued to exist up to the current peripheral capitalist
globalism.
In this
self-affirmation, Leftists must learn to differentiate between a movement (such
as the labour movement) and organisations of the movement; between an
organization and its leadership; and between this leadership and the individual
leaders. Any confusion in simple matters like this may give room for
self-doubt. The Left must therefore renew its self-education and popular mass education.
We declare again: The Nigerian Left exists and has existed continuously as a
fighting force since the mid-1940s.
The second clarification is that the Nigerian
Left cannot be asked, and is not being asked, to start “afresh”. No. What is
being proposed is that the Nigerian Left should make a leap from where it is
and from what it has been doing. But that leap
will not detach it from the present or the past. When there is a leap in
knowledge or practice, the past, as an entity, is not wiped out or rendered
irrelevant. The third clarification
is that, historically, every authentic organization of the Nigerian Left has
had at least one of the following words in its name: labour, workers’,
people’s, revolutionary, working-people’s, socialist or communist. There is
absolutely no reason to break with that tradition of self-identification and
self-affirmation.
With this
extended preparation I may now make my proposal on the central tasks of the
Nigerian Left in this 20th year of “democracy”. The tasks can be
grouped into two: special and general.
The special task can be
formulated like this: A small ad-hoc group of Nigerian Leftists—from the ranks
of revolutionary Marxists—should volunteer and select themselves and assume the
revolutionary responsibility of convening an all-Nigeria “unity meeting” of
Leftists (Marxists, socialists and radical democrats). The ad-hoc group should
present the following to the meeting: a draft people’s manifesto, a draft
memorandum on participation in electoral politics, a draft newsletter, a
provisional coordinating and documentation centre, a draft “unifying name”, and
a draft programme and structure.
The general
task, which is for all Nigerian Leftists, has already been apprehended
informally and is now being executed—in form of debates, discussions and
conferences. Interested non-Leftists will be encouraged to participate in these
activities but will not be allowed to disrupt them or act as agents-provocateurs.
The special ad-hoc committee will monitor the process.
Finally, just
as the committee will volunteer and announce itself, it will also dissolve
itself at the end of its assignment.
*Edwin Madunagu,
mathematician and journalist, writes from Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.
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