Further Notes to the Nigerian Left
By
Edwin Madunagu
The
Nigerian Left has largely neglected, if not deliberately avoided a
renewed ideological struggle which has become a strong factor in
both the general turbulence and violence enveloping the whole
country and the associated power struggle within the ruling class.
The neglected or badly engaged ideological struggle may simply be
described as “argument over the birth of Nigeria,” that is, argument
over how Nigeria came into being and what would have happened if
Britain, an imperial colonial power, had not invaded our lands,
defeated or deceived our ancestors, gathered them together and
imposed itself on them. The argument then proceeds to the
desirability or otherwise of returning to the status quo-ante 1900,
1906, 1914, 1935, 1945, 1952, 1960, or 1966, that is, returning to
the situation existing before one of the major pre-1966 landmarks of
our collective history.
It
is to be hoped that my description of what is now happening in the
country as associated with (but not reducible to) a power struggle
within the ruling class will not, itself, spark off an angry
argument. Let me briefly explain myself. Because Nigeria’s ruling
class is – for now! – economically, socially, politically, and
ideologically hegemonic in the country, every serious struggle
within it threatens to integrate itself with popular struggle. And I
employ the term “popular” in the ordinary Leftist sense of involving
working, toiling, poor and de-classed masses and expressing their
interests.
The
proposition here is that we should not be lost in the forms in which
a battle within the ruling class – or even a national battle - is
waged, thereby forgetting the origin or essence of that battle. To
illustrate: the struggle to become the president or a state governor
manifests itself most strongly and most violently among the masses –
not only in the distribution of “palliatives”, “logistics” and
“stomach infrastructure,” but more dangerously in the interpretation
or re-interpretation of history and contemporary reality.
Nigerian Leftists and Leftist activists should therefore not neglect
the ideological argument about the origin or creation of Nigeria and
the trajectory of its history. We cannot ignore messages being
beamed on the masses and which the latter do not always ignore but
sometimes believe and act upon. Our ideological and political choice
of a united Nigeria under people’s power, popular-democracy and
socialism should draw us into the debate on origin and history. In
general, it is wrong to ignore any issue through which the ruling
class exercises or strengthens its hegemony (control) over the
masses. That is the main issue in this piece. Our ideological task
here is two-fold. One: to truthfully reconstruct the story of
Nigeria’s creation and the country’s main historical trajectory; and
two: to defend Leftist platform of revolutionary national
unity which stands on a rejection of both the call to march back to
the past and the silly mantra of “Nigerian unity is not negotiable”.
Taking a long view of humanity and of the Nigerian history, we may
begin our own narrative like this: After a long period of violent,
enslaving and exploitative incursions into this part of the African
continent, a European imperial power, Britain, felt confident
enough, on January 1, 1900, to proclaim the establishment of three
conquered territorial possessions: the Protectorate of Northern
Nigeria, the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the Colony of
Lagos. The first was ruled from Lokoja; the second from
Calabar/Asaba and the third from Lagos. Six years later, in 1906,
the second and third possessions were merged to become the Colony
and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. And eight years later, in
1914, the original three – and later two – possessions were merged
(“amalgamated”) to become the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria.
Between 1900 and 1914, the British, now firmly established in
Lokoja, Calabar/Asaba and Lagos as a military power, completed the
conquest and “pacification” of all the territories included in
Nigeria as we know it today. About 1935, the Southern Protectorate
was split into Western and Eastern groups of Provinces. Northern
Protectorate also became Northern group of Provinces.
However, despite the 1914 “amalgamation”, colonial Nigeria was still
governed like two separate colonies up to 1945, that is, up to the
end of the Second World War. The real political and administrative
integration that started after that war became part of the process
of British de-colonisation of Nigeria. The process ended on October
1, 1960 with the independence of Nigeria. At independence, Nigeria
was confirmed as a federation of three constituent regions: North,
West and East and a federal capital territory, Lagos.
Although a lot of internal geopolitical and administrative
restructuring has taken place in Nigeria since the creation of the
country in 1914, its shape and surface area remain almost the same
today, 107 years later. Furthermore, although Nigeria now has a
total of 36 constituent states (and a federal capital territory)
grouped into six geopolitical zones and split into a total of 774
local government areas, Nigeria’s ruling class and its power blocs
and political forces have ensured that the 1914 colonial two-part
structure (North and South) remains active at some essential levels
of politics, governance and power struggle.
This
highly condensed narrative may be followed by a series of
explanatory and self-clarificatory footnotes, or rather, series of
declarations, affirmations, and refutations. We may declare, for
instance, that although the British created Nigeria according to its
wish and will, that is, without consulting the “indigenous peoples”,
the “natives”, the entity that emerged in 1914 cannot, today, be
truthfully described as a territory of “strange bed-fellows” that
could not have been transformed into a nation, even a united
revolutionary nation, through a process of revolution and evolution.
The
Nigerian Left can however affirm that what emerged in 1914 was a
colonial territory of very large number of ethnic groups differing
in sizes, cultures, religions, levels and modes of development and
types of relationships with their neighbours – some friendly and
equal, others unfriendly and unequal. We can also affirm that the
most fundamental thing that the British colonial power did in and to
Nigeria was that it halted the various modes of development it met
in its conquered territories. Thereafter, the colonizing power
imposed capitalism as the dominant mode of production and organizing
framework for further development.
About 15 years ago, an open, extended but unstructured Leftist
debate on the ethnic nationality question in Nigeria took place in
the country. I call the debate Leftist because the general premise –
sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit – was the desirability and
possibility of a revolutionary transformation of Nigeria into a
modern, anti-capitalist and popular-democratic (or peoples’)
republic. Several Leftists and non-Leftists took part in that
debate. But, by far, the most prominent participants were two
Nigerian academics and Leftist public intellectuals: G. G. Darah and
the late Yusufu Bala Usman.
The
central question around which the debate – bitter, even by Leftist
standard – was waged was the existence, or otherwise, of the
national question in Nigeria. This central question broke itself
down or was broken down into concrete specifics: “resource control”,
“fiscal or true federalism”, “sovereign national conference” and
“geopolitical restructuring”. Since the mainstream newspapers of the
time showed more than average interest in the debate, research in
the matter will not, today, be difficult for any interested student,
political activist or academic.
Several positions and propositions emerged, and several more can be
distilled from what we may now refer to as the “GG Darah-Bala Usman
debate on the national question in Nigeria.” But two propositions
that are of relevance to this piece are as follows: One: that
although several separate states, kingdoms, chiefdoms communities
and principalities were conquered by Britain before they were merged
into a single country, Nigeria, independence was granted on October
1, 1960, not to those entities – but to Nigeria. Two: that
side by side with class contradictions, exploitation, domination and
oppression, there are ethnic-based contradictions and
exploiter-exploited, dominating-dominated relationships in
contemporary Nigeria, and that while some of these relationships are
new (that is, post-colonial), others are residues of the unequal
exploitative and oppressive relationships which British colonialists
met on arrival and either used or weakened and quietened. Some
Leftists introduced the term “internal colonialism” to describe some
aspects of this phenomenon.
My
proposition today does not seek to contradict either of the two
propositions stated above. Rather, it seeks to transcend them, that
is, absorb and go beyond them. And the proposition is this: Taking a
long view of history and based on the short-term and long-term
interests of the working, toiling, de-classed and poor masses of
Nigeria – from north to south, east to west, northeast to southwest
and northwest to southeast - the Nigerian Left stands on a platform
of national unity, a platform on which is boldly inscribed: people’s
power, popular democracy, and socialism. Only that platform, and not
the current capitalist political economy, can satisfactorily and
finally resolve the violent contradictions now consuming the nation.
But realistic compromises can be sought and obtained for the moment.
The
question may then be asked: If the Nigerian Left accedes to power or
office in Nigeria today, what can it do, what will it do to halt the
turbulence in the country and pull it back from the precipice of
disaster? First of all, the Nigerian Left will proclaim its
identity, credibility and antecedents. It will follow this with a
call on all the aggrieved, disaffected and disgruntled of Nigeria to
“cease fire” on the grounds that justice will be done henceforth. It
will address, in particular, the armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits,
hoodlums and armed herders. It will then roll out a series of
executive orders that common sense has long dictated should be
issued, orders that the present regime ought to have issued long
ago. Further steps will depend precariously on the reception of
these initial announcements and executive orders.
In
conclusion: I propose that to halt this national turbulence and
violence, reverse the decline to catastrophe and calm the nation,
any serious, sincere, democratic, and genuinely patriotic government
may not, in the first instance, need to look beyond the current
Constitution, the Laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and
reports of Nigerian state-appointed Commissions of Inquiry and
Constitutional Conferences since 1999, that is, since the beginning
of the current Fourth Republic.
Madunagu, mathematician and journalist, writes from Calabar, Cross
River State.
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