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Adams Oshiomole in Search of a Political Party for his 2007 Elections Programme By Dr Abayomi Ferreira
A historically significant piece of political news was in the Nigerian press, specifically the ‘Saturday Tribune’ a few days ago: the search for a political party by Adams Aliyu Oshiomole, the erudite President of the Nigerian Labour Congress NLC for his 2007 electoral programme. This might look like a small piece of news. Some serious assessment of its essence will show that the occurrence, the genesis of the publication to be a mighty evidence of the failure of the Nigerian political process. The significance of this piece of news becomes more prominent when it is publicly disclosed by close associates of Oshiomole that the leaders of the Labour Party had to hold “many meetings” with Adams to convince him that he would have to pursue his political programme on the platform of the Labour Party. The failure of the dominant politicians through their political parties since 1950 is the basic cause of the national dilemma manifesting as a botched political system and failure in economic development in Nigeria. This failure results in the sustenance of the vast majority of our people in pervasive poverty in an era of global advancement in the quality of human life, buoyant national resources and the squandering of the Nigerian national wealth by politicians. Adams Oshiomole’s political records is fully immersed in the role and activities of the trade unions and its popular programme of protest politics spanning the last years of military dictatorship and the present seven years of the constitutional rule of Obasanjo and the Peoples Democratic Party PDP. The most obvious role of Adams is the sustained opposition to the most prominent programme of the Obasanjo government, the recurrent increase in the prices of petroleum products in the face of stagnant wages the intrinsic value of which continues to dwindle as a consequence of the unhealthy relationship of the national currency to the international monetary and economic system. Adams Oshiomole, since 1999 has rightly been in the vanguard of the left political struggles against the rightwing reaction and antipeople programme of military politicians and their civilian collaborators. The Nigerian Labour Congress, as the largest and most effective labour centre had been distilled from a struggle of left politics against pro imperialist unionism that we could trace to 1946, the days of Gogo Chu Nzeribe, Dr Bankole Akpata, Nduka Eze and the beginning of the great Imoudu years. The positioning of the NLC as inherited by Adams Oshiomole in a pro-people posture was not the creation of the present leaders of the NLC, but a historical process that has continuously stayed in close alliance with the people against all forms of dictatorship and its ignoble continuation as modified by the political ruling cliques in the PDP, AD, ANPP, APGA and their likes. The ideological opportunity for struggle that Oshiomole deftly and admirably accessed and utilised in the period of his leadership places him in line although behind such historical figures as Wahab Goodluck, S U Bassey, Imoudu, Hassan Sunmonu, and to a lesser degree Paschal Bafyau who were the earlier builders of what we now have as the NLC.
What is the evidence?
Firstly, Oshiomole rightly succeeded into the progressive and popular leadership in the trade union movement as bequeathed by those historic figures. From the good records of his presidency of the NLC, Adams was able to retain the active support of the Nigerian left movement without which the pro-people posture of the NLC would have been ineffective. It would have been impracticable to sustain that posture through the current Obasanjo and PDP govrnment. Thus, Oshiomole maximally utilised left politics, as the leader of the NLC to fight the reactionary who have dominated Nigerian politics and power for half a century. He used protest politics and popular support to advance popular issues.
Secondly, from the late years of military dictatorship, the Party for Social Democracy PSD was born as the Party of the labour movement, indeed a creation of the NLC led by Oshiomole. At the 2003 elections, the PSD that was registered along with some other 26 political parties, failed to show its flag to the Nigerian electorate. After the elections, the PSD was rechristened the Labour Party LP. Truly, the Labour Party that was officially led by S O Z Ejiofor who apparently has been replaced by Ali Abatcha, Abdul Salaam with Issa Aremu as the leading theoretician may not possess the required virility of a Labour Party that should lead the working and exploited peoples of Nigeria to political power, it is ideologically incorrect and deceitful of his leadership for the very leader of the NLC, the mother of our current Labour Party to pursue his personal political advancement in any of the bourgeois political parties. These parties, PDP, AD, ANPP, APGA and now inclusive of ACD and MRRD are the very exploiter parties that give any sense and rationale for the creation and existence of the Labour Party in the first place.
The political dilemma of Adams Oshiomole is not very new. At the 2003 general elections, he, at the last minute of the campaigns publicly called on Nigerian workers to vote for Obasanjo and the PDP. Also at the heights of the campaigns, Adams in company of Sylvester Ejiofor, Abdul Salaam and other leaders of the NLC mounted a countrywide television campaign for Obasanjo and the PDP. Although, that so-called presidential debate was notified to the Democratic Alternative DA only 24 hours before the event, it was a craftily prepared platform to showcase Obasanjo as the preferred candidate of the Oshiomole led NLC of the day. Immediately after 29 May 2003, the very first act of the newly installed Obasanjo and PDP government was to raise the pump prices of petroleum products by 92 per cent. Of course, Oshiomole immediately returned to the trenches of protest politics to battle Obasanjo and his government “on behalf of the people.” He has repeated this battles a number of times without any lasting effect on the programmes of the PDP government. On each occasion, the police killed some youths and workers whilst many more got severely wounded. We need not remind Oshiomole that since the installation of the PDP government in 1999, millions of workers have lost their jobs, education and health services get poorer in quality and accessibility, the value of the national currency is dropping in the face of stagnant wages and the political friends of Oshiomole in the right wing parties continue to put chunks of our national wealth in private pockets. The exploitation of the people is kept at full throttle.
It is public knowledge that Oshiomole is keen on becoming the next governor of Edo State. That is a very legitimate ambition. I also know that by his profound intellect, wide knowledge, good erudition and unique experience as a president of the NLC for two terms, Adams would be a much better president or prime minister of Nigeria than most of the exploiters who have occupied those offices since 1960. His ideological commitment and political orientation are very much in harmony with the interests of the Nigerian peoples in comparison with the self-seeking orientation and pro-imperialist ideological stance of all those who by either the rigged ballot or the bullet have successively occupied that seat between 1960 and today. The issue is that Adams requires choosing to work the programme that is ideologically desirable and correct. He cannot hunt with the hounds and simultaneously run with the dogs. He can never find that programme for the rapid economic development of Nigeria that is desperately desired by our people in any of the dominant and ruling political parties. An undesirable migration by Adams into any of the PDP, ACD, MRDD, ANPP, AD or APGA in pursuit of personal political ambition will be recorded in history as a stab in the back of the working peoples of Nigeria. It will be an unwelcome betrayal of the youths and workers who fell and died whilst marching in company of Oshiomole on protest marches against the PDP government in the past seven years. When we lost Chima Ubani, the Deputy President of the DA on protest march with Adams in 2005, we wrote in our tribute to the young hero of the Nigerian revolution as follows.
Political somersaults by left activists who turn coat at critical times to work in company of right –wing self seeking politicians is an unhealthy phenomenon, a disservice to the political development of Nigeria. Otegbeye, S G Ikoku, Ade Thomas, Femi Okunnu, Paschal Bafyau, Sola Iji, Onyeogocha were among the lengthening list of excellent left materials who at various times decamped to join forces with the politicians in further aid of the continuing exploitation of the working peoples of Nigeria. It will be disastrous to his records for Adams Oshiomole to lengthen that ignoble list of left politicians who for personal advancement and selfish reasons abandoned the popular struggle to join forces with the politicians to prolong the deprivation of the people and sustain the failure of economic development in Nigeria.
The most urgent assignment on the Nigerian political agenda is the conscious building of the mass political party of the left to effectively engage the military oligarchy and their civilian collaborators to displace them from power which they have monopolised against the will of the people in the past 56 years. The seeds for that desired political movement already exist in the Democratic Alternative DA, Peoples’ Redemption Party PRP, National Conscience Party NCP, Movement for Democracy and Justice MDJ and Nigerian Advance Party NAP. Adams Oshiomole certainly possesses the ideological and intellectual credentials to function within such a party. At the very worst, he should reform the Labour Party that creation of the NLC to fall in line with the five organisations we just mentioned above. That must be ideological limit of his rightward migration. Hunting for an electoral ticket in any of the four ruling parties or the ACD and MRRD tantamounts to a total betrayal of the ideological position from where Adams has consistently fought his popular battles; it is a total betrayal of all that he has achieved particularly as president of the NLC; it is a betrayal of those youths and workers who were maimed or killed in the protest politics and marches that characterise his presidency of the Nigerian Labour Congress; it is a betrayal of the millions of workers that lost their jobs as a consequence of the anti- popular programme of the PDP and Obasanjo government.
Dr Abayomi Ferreira Kent United Kingdom
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