Facing 2021: Notes to the Nigerian Left By Edwin Madunagu Forwarded by Chido Onumah
The
last paragraph of my last published article for the year 2020,
titled “Study notes on state and state failure” (December 22)
started with a number of questions to the Nigerian Left. Please note
that, our wishes notwithstanding, we do not see or present the
Nigerian Left, as of today, as an undifferentiated entity. Rather,
we realistically see it as a movement of various segments and
fighting vanguards united by a common history of successes and
failures as well as commitment, faith and hope.
The
questions were: “So, judging from the multitude of crises partially
listed in the opening paragraph of this piece, has the Nigerian
state failed? Is it failing? Is the summons: “revolution or state
failure” real? In other words, is a fundamental change of agenda
called for in the Nigerian Left?” My answer, which I called
provisional, deliberately avoided a direct contact with the
questions because it would have been unhelpful to attempt to answer
them directly.
The
present piece, the first in the year 2021, begins with the
provisional (indirect) answer which I gave to the questions in the
December article. It was a proposition: “The situation in Nigeria is
serious, very serious. But it calls only for intensification of the
current course of popular struggle and organization, not romance
with a formula (“revolution or state failure”) that may lead to
unhelpful, if not dangerous voluntarism or adventurism. The Nigerian
Left should simply carry into the year 2021 a renewed revolutionary
commitment to both electoral politics and direct popular struggle.
And it must never, never again, allow the following objectives –
popular democracy propelled by popular power, national unity and
socialism – to either separate from each other or shift from the
movement’s strategic focus.”
From
this provisional answer to the questions on “state failure” we may
distill a summary platform for 2021. This is: collective popular
struggle and active collaboration as two sides of organizational
development; commitment to electoral politics and direct popular
struggle as two sides of engagement in political struggle; and an
integrated Left strategy whose logical moments may be presented as
“popular democracy propelled by popular power” (and not as “gifts”
from the ruling class); “national unity” (seen as the fighting unity
of the working and toiling masses); and “socialism” (defined not as
a mere progression of electoral politics, but politically,
ideologically, socially and economically as a class shift in the
location of “power”).
We
may now look at a number of recent or ongoing events on account of
their significance, especially the important lessons they embody and
teach the Nigerian Left. These events include: Nigeria’s #EndSARS or
youth revolt of October 2020, or rather, its aftermath; the
Christmas 2020 message of the Catholic Bishop of the Sokoto Diocese,
Reverend Matthew Hassan Kukah; and the violent protest on Wednesday,
January 6, 2021 by the supporters of America’s outgoing president,
Donald Trump at the country’s federal parliament in Washington.
The
last event took place on the day a joint session of that parliament,
called Congress, was to formally confirm the election of Joe Biden
as Trump’s successor. The inauguration of the new president was then
barely two weeks away. This “event” has been described as an “armed
insurrection” instigated by the outgoing president – where
“insurrection” has an ordinary definition: “an organized opposition
to an authority, a mutiny; a rebellion.”
We
shall concentrate on the three listed events: #EndSARS aftermath,
Bishop Kukah’s message and the January “insurrection” in Washington.
It would be a measure of its development in the year 2021 if the
Nigerian Left, through its various formations, vanguards and known
activists are heard and seen from time to time to intervene, openly,
but seriously and responsibly, in such public controversies. We
introduce the three listed events, beginning with #ENDSARS
aftermath.
Several functionaries of the Nigerian state, at all levels, have
been heard to vow that a movement like the #EndSARS (youth) revolt
of 2020 will never be allowed to occur again. Whenever I hear this I
laugh because #EndSARS is not a parliament that adjourned, to
reconvene at a later date. No, #EndSARS (2020) was a product of
contradictions of living social forces together with historical
conjunctures in circumstances that are constantly changing. The
maximum that the inspirers, organisers and “foot-soldiers” of 2020 #EndSARS
can now do is to continue to contribute to the development of the
fighting ability of organisations of Nigeria’s working and toiling
people (the popular masses), their allies and – as we used to say in
our younger days – “all those that stand by them and fight on their
side.” History does not present occurrences like #EndSARS more than
once in a generation. You will produce a farce if you attempt to
reproduce it!
It
is the combination of the conduct of Nigeria’s ruling class,
changing circumstances and the permanent commitment of Nigerian
Leftists to developing the masses’ fighting ability that may give
rise to future spontaneous political ruptures at points, in places
and in forms the state has very limited ability to predict. And we
may humbly add that the ability of Leftist leaders and activists is
also limited in this regard – although it is much, much higher than
that of the ruling class and its state. Given this reality, it is of
little value for the Nigerian state and its functionaries to vow to
prevent future #EndSARS.
If a
vow is however necessary, I would like to suggest that it should be
a serious and credible vow that the federal and state governments
would actually do what they promised they would do in response to
the specific demands of #EndSARS (2020). In other words, and more
directly, rather than vowing to prevent future #EndSARS or seeing
every assembly as a preparation for another #EndSARS, the Nigerian
state, through its institutions, agencies and functionaries, should
begin to do and be seen to be doing what it promised to do.
On
Christmas Day of 2020, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto,
Reverend Matthew Hassan Kukah, delivered a message on the situation
in Nigeria. It was a critical statement on the state of the nation.
In summary, the bishop accused the government of President Muhammadu
Buhari of nepotism, tribalism, incompetence, insensitivity to the
material conditions of the masses of Nigeria, and exploitation of
the current unequal ethno-religious and regional structure of
political power in Nigeria.
This
message, as expected, polarized public opinion in the country. While
several commentators accused the cleric of partisanship,
indiscretion, lack of patriotism and even treason, others supported
him, absolving him of all allegations. A small minority of
commentators however restricted themselves to “on the one hand … on
the other hand” types of commentary, that is, dancing on the fence.
I propose that in matters like this involving radical religious
leaders like Bishop Kukah, the Nigerian Left should base its
intervention on the freedoms enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution,
its own principles of “secular democracy” and “national equality”
and, of course, the facts of the issue.
My
introduction to contemporary Trump and ‘’Trumpism’’ will here be
limited to the following reminder: In the late 1920s, mid-way
between the end of the First World War and the start of the Second,
the revolutionary Marxist Left in Europe sounded a general alarm on
the threat of fascism in Germany. Unfortunately, the
social-democratic movement which then controlled the bulk of the
German labour organisation did not (and could not) apprehend the
seriousness of the situation until Adolf Hitler actually came to
power, through elections, as Chancellor of Germany in early 1930s.
The task then shifted from that of preventing fascism from coming to
power to that of uniting all “unitable” forces to defeat fascism –
which was a clear danger to all.
It
was at this point that Leon Trotsky, already in exile, proposed the
following tactical formula to the Marxist Left in its necessary
alliance with the social-democratic movement and liberals of the
Right: “March separately, but strike together; agree (with allies)
on where to strike and when to strike, but maintain your
organizational independence.” The reason was simple: Social forces
outside the Left may soon realize their limited objectives and give
up the fight. They may even join yesterday’s opponents against the
Left.
Hence, in analyzing what is now happening in America and drawing
lessons for itself, the Nigerian Left should go back to the rise of
German fascism and remember that the factors went beyond the
dismissed Army Corporal, Adolf Hitler. And, lest I forget, the
Nigerian Left should also go back to, or research anew who actually
“financed” the rise of Adolf Hitler.
Trotsky once described fascist rule as a “regime of petit-bourgeois
despair.” I am seeing traces of this in “Trumpism” which should not
be seen as an aberration. However, the slogan “March separately but
strike together” is not an argument in support of aloofness or
sectarianism. It is a reminder of a repeated lesson of history.
Madunagu, mathematician and journalist, writes from
Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.
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