FROM PROTEST
TO POWER, STREET TO SERVICE:
A CLARION CALL TO ACTIVISTS AND COMPATRIOTS FOR URGENT
POLITICAL ACTION TO SALVAGE OUR COUNTRY NIGERIA!
BACKGROUND
AND CONTEXT
For a generation the world has been passing
through tumultuous and chaotic times, defined and characterised by the most
severe and all embracing systemic crises of the global capitalist system. The
crisis is at once a food, financial, economic, environmental/ecological, social
and political one. And rather than abate it has continued to deepen since its
dramatic emergence with the food price crisis of 2007 and the epochal collapse
of Leyman Brothers, signaling the collapse of the financial system in 2008.
Since its inception, the crisis of the
global market system has led to not only the dramatic collapse followed by
bailouts of large corporations, but also of whole national economies – Iceland,
Ireland, Greece, and the struggling and near collapsed Spanish, Portuguese, and
Italian economies. The Eurozone crisis has become the most enduring emblem of
this global crisis.
In Nigeria, this deep rooted crisis of neo-liberalism
is compounded by the epochal ineptitude, political and economic incompetence,
as well as the selfish pecuniary interests of a parochial, provincial,
pedestrian, and thieving treasury looting ruling class and political elite.
This disastrous infliction on the nation
includes loss of one million industrial jobs with closure of over 1,000
industrial enterprises over a 10 year period; industrial capacity utilisation
wavering around 35%; fratricidal hostilities bordering civil war; continuing
ethno/religious strife orchestrated by the counter mobilisations of ethnic and
religious fractions/factions of the ruling class; and increasing impoverisation
of overwhelming majority of the toiling citizens. According to the most recent
data from the government’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 62.5% of
Nigerians live in absolute/abject poverty, while 70% live in relative poverty (that
is 101/112 million out of a population of 166 million); rising unemployment (over
25% national average, and over 33% for youths); rising inflation and its
attendant rising cost of living and decreasing condition of living of citizens;
and even more significantly the organised unconscionable looting of the
treasury that has now reached alarming unsustainable scale. Over 2.5 trillion
Naira was lost to fraud in revelations between January 2011 and May 2012 alone.
This figure is more than 50% of the annual federal budget, an alarming equivalent
of the annual national budgets of virtually all the ECOWAS countries combined!
HOW
THE EXPLOITED, OVER BURDENED AND IMPOVERISHED RESPONDED
Across the world the response of the ruling
classes have been to increase the hardship of the exploited and oppressed
working peoples, by shifting the burden of the stabilization and recovery of
the global economy to the subordinate classes. The response of the
impoverished, unemployed, overexploited and politically unrepresented majority
of the citizens has been a massive global wave of resistance, which has
produced the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region); the
general strike and anti-austerity resistance movement in Europe that has led to
the collapse of sitting governments: Greece, Ireland, Ice Land, Spain,
Portugal, Italy, France, UK, Netherlands, etc.
While the fall from power of Benedine Ali,
Mubarak, and Gadaffi has been quite dramatic; the governmental collapse in
Greece and Italy, as well as the most recent electoral outcomes in France and
Greece (where anti austerity parties were voted into power or received the
largest share of the votes), have been no less dramatic.
In Nigeria, the response of the Ruinous
Ruling Class, compounded by the need to raise revenue to cover up the previous
unprecedented scale of looting of the treasury and refill the treasury in order
to ensure a sustainable basis for treasury looting engendered and produced THE
HISTORIC JANUARY UPRISING – The most wide spread and national (across more than
55 cities]; longest lasting (one week of general strike and 12 days of mass
street protests); as well as most successful general strike and Mass Action in
the history of Nigeria.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? A CALL TO DUTY
AND ACTION!
Evident from the global experience of the
Arab spring, the political convulsions in Europe, and our experience in the
January Uprising are:
·
A definite and clear-cut
alternative to deprivation, autocracy and the political and economic brigandage
of the global ruling class must be built.
·
This clear-cut alternative must
be politically organised and must seek political expression; this alternative
must eventually take on the ruling class and contest for power.
·
This clear-cut alternative cannot
be provided by, nor organised and led by the current political elites; neither
their conservative nor progressive/social democratic wings. This particular
point is even more poignant in Nigeria where both wings of the ruling class
have collectively looted the treasury and governed with impunity as brigands in
power.
·
This clear-cut political
alternative which will reorganize society and implement an alternative economic
policy framework that will prioritise people over profits, and wellbeing over
growth; can only be organised by the elemental forces central to the
organisation, mobilisation and coordination of the global resistance in each
country. Here, the experience of Greece is very instructive in the rise and
emergent electoral superiority of the radical left; an experience already
presaged and buttressed in the victories on the organised radical and popular
left movements in Latin America, in country after country since the last
decade.
·
The most significant lesson of
this moment in world history is that only by building a mass political protest
and resistance movement can the decades/centuries old grip of the discredited
ruling class/ruling political elite on power be broken. In this regard, we
commit to deepening the mass resistance on the streets and in the workplaces,
consolidating on the gains of the January Uprising in building such a party.
Without this mode of party building, as has been shown by recent experience in
the Arab Spring (with victories for conservative Islamist Parties) and most
recently in France (with victory for the Social Democratic Socialist Party);
only the historically established parties of factions and fractions of the
ruling class, forced by circumstance to be critical of the ongoing austerity
based onslaught of the ruling elites, will become the political and electoral
beneficiary of the mass resistance occasioned by the popular anger! It is thus
incumbent on us to build a party that will deepen the protest movement and as
well be capable of transforming street anger into political power.
It
is in the light of the foregoing, and seizing the moment, by taking advantage
of the global balance of class forces, that we issue this clarion call to all
activists and compatriots agitated by the condition of our country; radicalized
by the January Uprising, and desirous of salvaging our country, to begin a nationwide
discussion and effort to build an alternative toiling people focused, popular
mass based political platform to challenge the ruling political elite for
power.
The
clear lesson taught by the recent global experience of opposition to bad
governance, economic incompetence and
political brigandage, is the urgent need to make the transition FROM PROTEST TO
POWER; FROM STREET TO SERVICE!
On our part, we are fully committed to the
emergence of such a party, and in collaboration with as many activists and
compatriots that believe in the necessity of this course of action, to soon
produce and circulate a MANIFESTO for such a party.
We call on every Nigerian active and
radicalized by the January Uprising to heed this call to action and join us in
the journey to RECLAIM OUR HUMANITY, REMAKE OUR COUNTRY AND TAKE IT BACK FROM
THE ALLIANCE OF TREASURY LOOTERS AND ROGUES!
Together we can and shall build this party
and transform our country!
ISSUED BY TAKE
BACK NIGERIA INITIATIVE
·
ODOH DIEGO OKENYODO
·
OLUWOLE ELEGBEDE
·
GBENRO OLAJUYIGBE
·
TUNDE AREMU
·
JAYE GASKIA
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